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THINGS OP NORTHriELD 

AND 

OTHER THINGS 



T hi rigs or.... 
Norfhfidd 

and.... other Things 

THHT SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH 



BY 
Rev. DAVID GREGG, D.D. 

Pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Author of "Facts that Call for Faith," "Makers of the Ameri- 
can Republic," ''The Testimony of the La?id to the 
Book," "Our Best Moods," etc., etc. 



New York 
C. B. TREAT & COMPANY 

Office of the Treasury Magazine 

1599 




Gf 1 



3>K''S& 



24048 



Copyright 1899 
E. B. TREAT & COMPANY 



rWO COPIES REC'iVED, 







PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



This volume consists of five discourses 
preached in the Lafayette Avenue Presby- 
terian Church in Brooklyn. There is much 
demand in that church to see in print the ser- 
mons there preached, that their impression 
may be renewed and deepened ; and not a few 
volumes have been made of these sermons to 
meet this demand, as well as to carry the im- 
pressive words to a wider circle. 

The peculiar quality of the sermons here 
presented, which justified the gathering of 
them in a special volume under a common 
name, is that they were preached after a visit 
to Mr. Moody's annual summer convention at 
Northfield, in which the author took part, and 
that under their different headings they all 
give expression to the emotions and thoughts 
of an active pastor. As he turns back from 
this great spiritual colloquy, and looks his own 
people in the face, and asks his heart what now 



in his new thoughts and revived emotions he 
would wish to translate from these northern 
hills to this home church. It is a good thing 
that a pastor may go away from the more com- 
mon every Sunday surroundings, and fill his 
soul freely with the finest spiritual food ; good 
for him to have some other place than his own 
closet and his own study for the gathering of 
new strength for his work. But as he does all 
this, he must needs wish that something of the 
high, pure, open-air spiritual life of those holy 
hills may come and remain among all his peo- 
ple. These discourses ably and tenderly voice 
this feeling and conviction. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Things of Northfield which Should Be in 

Every Church, i 

II. Why Are there Not More Conversions ? . 29 

III. Our Task as Christians and What We Need 

for Effectiveness, 57 

IV. Am I Worldly ? 85 

V. Our Duty to Our Young Men, . . .115 



THINGS OF NORTHFIELD WHICH 

SHOULD BE IN EVERY 

CHURCH. 



' I speak ... if by any means I may provoke to emulation."— 
Rom. xi.: 14. 



I. 



THINGS OF NORTHFIELD WHICH 
SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 

Is not the summer a menace to the higher 
life of man? Is it not a season of spiritual 
weakness? That depends altogether on where 
you spend the summer, and how. To some it 
is ; to some it is not. 

A summer spent at a fashionable resort, 
where artificiality reigns, and the brass band 
perpetually plays, and the midnight sees the 
dance only well begun, and custom announces 
that everybody is expected to be the incarna- 
tion of the fashion-plate : — that may be a men- 
ace to the higher life. But a summer spent at 
Northfield, with prayer in the morning, and 
church all day, and lights out at ten o'clock — 
that is a summer of another kind. 

I do not wonder that the question is asked : 
" Is not the summer a menace to the higher life 
of man? " The summer as it is now spent is a 
3 



4 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD 

season of relaxation. Everything takes a va- 
cation, even conscience. Men and women are 
away from under the eyes of home police. 
They have time on hand to do as they please. 
The spirit of self -abandon is in the air. It is 
too hot to be serious ; and there is too much 
languor of nerve and muscle and spirit that one 
should be expected to rein himself up to any- 
thing like duty or self-restraint. Expectation 
is everywhere let down to a low tone. A man 
demands little of his neighbor and nothing of 
himself. The fact is this, during the summer 
it is considered that no one is on duty. It is 
the time when we city people expect to spend 
our money and to make none. It is allowable 
for us to use up the income of the whole year 
to cover the expense of a single trip amid peo- 
ple we know not, and among whom we can pose 
for what we are not. Is my sarcasm misplaced? 
Am I only a miserable pessimist? Am I simply 
a mean slanderer of the summer? 

Sometimes a single event, a single fact, gives 
us an insight into the true nature of things. I 
think this is the case here. Take one single 
fact relative to the summer — the fact which 
the bookseller tells us. What does the book- 
seller tell us? He tells us that the one book 
which commands the largest sale during the 



WHICH SHO VLD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 5 

summer is the novel. Well, what of that? The 
novel is a good thing ; it is the very widest door 
to the mind of mankind. It carries inspira- 
tion in it and mental tonic. It kindles and de- 
velops love ; and man and woman can do noth- 
ing better than love. Yes, all this is true of 
the good and pure and wholesome novel. But 
the bookseller tells us that the kind of novel 
which sells best in the summer is the novel 
which deals in realism, and whose morals are 
doubtful. Is that true? Then the people are 
not at their best in summer, and the higher life 
of man is not being cultured. 

Thoughtful and wise-hearted men have seen 
the menace which the summer as spent in our 
age carries in it, and it has awakened them to 
search for a defence. They have seen idle 
time going to waste ; they have seen the sleep 
of conscience ; the frivolous and hurtful dissi- 
pation ; the fashionable and unintellectual life, 
and the charm of the questionable novel. They 
have seen the people return to their homes 
morally unkeyed and spiritually paralyzed; 
and, moved to pity by the sight, they have 
given themselves to the task of rinding a pre- 
ventive. In their diagnosis of the case, they 
have found that the origin of the trouble is 
largely this: — unused time. As unoccupied 



6 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

time is the cause which makes the summer an 
injury to so many, they have determined to 
remove the cause by providing men with some- 
thing good and grand wherewith to fill up their 
time. And this I take it is the origin of Chau- 
tauqua and Northfield and Long Beach and 
Keswick and the summer school of theology at 
Oxford. These are all of them intended to 
protect the summer against waste, and against 
what is worse than waste, viz. : a wrong and 
bad use ; and they do so by filling the summer 
with education, and with lofty fellowships, and 
with pure and undefiled religion. 

But it is with Northfield that I mean to deal 
exclusively in this discourse. 

Northfield is one of the oldest towns in the 
United States. It dates back to the year 1663. 
It is a typical New England town, with its one 
wide street and giant elms. It is located in 
one corner of Massachusetts where you can 
look over into Vermont and into New Hamp- 
shire and see the spurs of the Green Moun- 
tains and the spurs of the White Mountains. 
It is picturesque to the last degree. There are 
river and forest and mountain and lake and 
fertile valley. But what of this? There are 
thousands of places in our land which can boast 
of all I have mentioned. That is true. These 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 7 

do not make Northfield. It is Mr. Moody 
that makes Northfield, and the institution which 
Mr. Moody has been instrumental in planting 
there. At Northfield and on Mount Hermon 
Mr. Moody has planted Christian schools for 
young women and young men who have limited 
means but high aims, and who wish above all 
things a good and a distinctively Christian 
education. In these schools are hundreds of 
young men and women to-day, who are bound 
to make their mark in this country, and to help 
America to reach a higher level. Scholars from 
these schools go to the ends of the earth, and 
they carry with them a manhood and a woman- 
hood which are themselves educational. Out 
of these schools have gone pupils already who 
have taken the highest honors in our leading 
universities. Here on these Massachusetts 
hills and in these educational plants, Chris- 
tians of money should invest their consecrated 
means, and enlarge and endow and perpetuate 
these magnificent institutions which under God 
are making the very men and women that the 
future needs. Christian capitalist, instead of 
building a costly shaft out in Greenwood to 
perpetuate your name and lead people to ask 
as they look on it, "Who was he, anyway?" 
build a hall, or a chapel, or a library, or a 



8 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

home to the name of Jesus Christ at Northfield, 
and make your money live and educate and 
develop and bless immortal souls to the end of 
time. If you cannot give in large enough sums 
for this, give in smaller sums. Select some or- 
phan boy and send him to school there and make 
a man out of him, and take his coming manhood 
for Christ. Or select an orphan girl and send 
her to school and make a woman out of her, 
and take her coming womanhood for Christ. 

But Northfield not only draws the youth of 
our land to its Christian schools during the 
school-term ; when the school-term is over and 
when vacation has come, it draws to itself 
bands of earnest Christian men and women, 
that they may spend the summer among its 
hills in quest of a higher, broader, deeper, fuller 
spiritual life. In this regard it is like Oxford 
of England, which has a summer conference for 
study upon the more intellectual lines relative 
to religion. A friend of mine who was at 
Oxford this summer writes: " The profoundest 
subjects have been treated with no dread of 
results. There have been no truths too sacred 
for reverent inquiry. Principal Fairbairn has 
been really great, and he is the master spirit 
here. The summer school is his. But yet 
after all it is Oxford itself that is the charm 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 9 

and the drawing-power. Here are the very 
colleges in which the men who have made 
England have been trained, and here are gath- 
ered much of the noblest architecture, and the 
most finished culture, and the richest achieve- 
ments of the world. And then the place is 
cool enough for comfortable work in summer." 
That is it. There is a drawing charm about a 
spot where educational institutions rise, which 
are doing a great work ; and now that North- 
field has its educational institutions, it has a 
charm which draws and which helps to make 
the summer Conference a power and a success. 

It is Northfield as the seat of the summer 
Christian Conference that we have before us 
now. And Northfield as such has been greatly- 
blessed by the Lord. God has blessed it to 
such an extent, and has made it such a far- 
reaching power, that I believe the great need 
of our Christian churches is, that they be made 
hungry with an intense hunger for the things 
of Northfield. The things which succeed there 
are the things which will succeed in every 
Christian church. 

Now I imagine you ask me : What did you 
see in Northfield which ought to be in every 
Christian church? The question calls for sev- 
eral answers. 



io THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

i. / saw there a holy, hearty, life-giving, and 
transforming and tra?isjigurating fellowship. 

Such a fellowship certainly should character- 
ize every church of Jesus Christ. There were 
over two thousand people there, men and 
women of the church universal, and yet all 
were heartily welcomed, and all were made to 
feel at home in this great household of faith. 
That was one of the very first things that im- 
pressed me, and I felt there was power in it, 
and success in it. That is precisely what our 
churches to-day need: — A fellowship which 
welcomes, and which will make men and women 
feel at home. Such a welcome is as divine sun- 
shine. People will come to it, and respond to it, 
and in it open all that is best in them and give 
what is best to God and to others. Let no one 
say, " Why, that is the welcome every church 
gives to people " ; for it is not. If that were the 
welcome the churches gave the people, the 
churches would be full. A gentleman whom 
I expect to see to-morrow told me this incident. 
He is a D. D. , also a LL. D. , and a man of ex- 
ceedingly fine presence. He said: "I went 
into a Presbyterian church in New York to 
hear Rev. Dr. B., lately come to the city. 
Positively there was not one person in the 
auditorium to every pew. The sexton showed 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. II 

me into a seat in the middle aisle. Presently 
a lady came up the aisle and stood in front of 
the pew in which I was, and from her manner 
I concluded she was the owner of the pew. I 
rose, stepped into the aisle and handed her in. 
She bowed her head and said whatever prayer 
she had to say, and then bending toward me 
she whispered, 'Do I know you?' I replied, 
' Madam, I do not think I have the honor of 
an acquaintance. ' ' How did you get in my 
pew?' 'The sexton showed me to this seat.' 
'He should have known better than that.' 
The Doctor of Divinity became at once anxious 
to know who his kind friend was. The hymn 
book helped him here. It contained the family 
name. At the close of the service, using the 
knowledge he had thus obtained, he addressed 
his new-made friend : " Have I the honor of 
speaking to Mrs. X? " " That is my name, sir. " 
" I knew your late husband well : we were asso- 
ciated together in many ways and very inti- 
mately." "Indeed." Then he related several 
things which awakened her interest; and be- 
fore the conversation closed, all the ice had 
thawed away, and she found that he was just 
as good as she was. In bidding him good-day 
she leaned over and said : " I hope you will not 
think anything of the conversation which 



1 2 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD 

passed between us at the beginning of the ser- 
vice." That is an exaggerated case, but the 
same thing is a possibility in a hundred other 
pews in New York and Brooklyn. For one I 
wish to say: It ought not to be a possibility 
in a single pew throughout Christendom. No 
child of God should ever be made to feel that 
he is a stranger or that he is unwelcome in his 
Father's House. 

But it is of the power of the fellowship which 
I saw at Northfield which I wish to speak. I 
wish to lay emphasis upon its power. The fel- 
lowship there had a testing power. It was self- 
revealing. If you were nothing but an ordinary 
Christian, you felt at once that that was your 
true measure, and that that was all that you 
were. Is it not something to be taught that 
there is a life richer, and fuller of joy and of 
power than that enjoyed by the ordinary 
Christian? The truth is, that the deepest teach- 
ings of Christ are almost meaningless to a large 
number of the members of the church, so 
ordinary is the average run of Christians. 

The men and women who were present at 
Northfield were in pursuit of high things, and 
you felt it. Their religion was a reality to 
them. God's book was a living voice to them, 
and salvation through the blood of Christ was 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 13 

a present thing. There was a hunger and a 
thirst after righteousness in the very air. The 
whole atmosphere was deeply and intensely 
spiritual. By your contact with men and wom- 
en you were made conscious of the absence of 
the things you had not, but which you ought 
to have. One felt how feeble his prayers were, 
and how insignificant his self-sacrifices were, 
and how little of God he admitted into his life. 
On the other hand, one felt how great were his 
possibilities, and how much he might do for 
God and for self and for others, if he but ful- 
filled the simple conditions of service laid down 
in God's word. From all parts of the world 
there were men and women present whom 
God was using, and whose stories thrilled one 
through and through, and found the lowest 
depths of one's nature, and awoke in one an 
enthusiasm and a faith and a desire to be used. 
There was one man there who will be re- 
membered as long as the Conference is remem- 
bered. It was the patriarch, the Rev. Mr. 
Young. He spent his whole life in laboring 
among the North American Indians. He stood 
before that audience, his silver locks a crown 
of glory, a man veritably transfigured, feeling 
through all his being the ecstasy of a self-sur- 
render, long honored of God. All he did was 



14 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

to tell the story of his life, and how he was in- 
strumental in bringing thousands to the knowl- 
edge of Jesus Christ. The audience listened 
with breathless attention when he told the sor- 
row of an aged Indian who lost his Bible and 
who traveled hundreds of miles to find it, and 
who, when he found it, brought it back with 
great joy to his wigwam. Methinks many a 
heart in that audience felt rebuked at the way 
it treated God's Book in this land of Bibles. 
That man's life has been a wonderful life; but 
then the man kept nothing back from God. 
When Mr. Young finished, if any half-hearted 
Christian in that audience had been asked to 
put the life of this missionary to the Indians 
and the life of A. T. Stewart side by side, and 
choose which he would rather take before the 
throne of God, he would have said, with an en- 
thusiasm at white heat, " There is no room for 
a comparison, there is only a striking and wilt- 
ing contrast; give me Mr. Young's life a hun- 
dred times over." 

Such is the holy fellowship which every 
church of Jesus Christ needs to-day ; but such 
is not the fellowship which every church of 
Jesus Christ has. There are churches on ev- 
ery hand in which a man can live half-hearted, 
cold, lukewarm, building up a questionable 



WHICH SHO ULD BE IN E VER Y CHURCH. 1 5 

character, doing questionable deeds, speaking 
questionable words, and yet not be revealed 
unto himself, not be rebuked, not be shamed 
out of himself and his burlesque caricature of 
the religion of Christ. I do not wonder that 
these churches make no saving impression upon 
the communities in which they are found. 
They are not yet saved themselves. Give me 
a church of converted men and women, in 
which everything morally wrong stands re- 
vealed and rebuked ; in which the close-fisted 
man, and the man of the compromised charac- 
ter, and the man religiously inactive feels 
himself to be out of place ; in which honesty 
and purity and truthfulness and love and a true 
life are all and all ; give me such a church and 
you give me a church that will command the 
community, and save sinners by the hundreds, 
and into which the saints will flock because 
there they know they can find their best self, 
and meet with Christ, and grow, and realize 
the highest demands of their immortal souls. 
My fellow-men, you may have eloquent ser- 
mons in your church, you may have the finest 
classical music, you may have the richest adorn- 
ment of sacred art, but if you have not there 
a holy fellowship, a communion of men and 
women of pure hearts and of burning zeal for 



1 6 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

souls, with characters above the suspicion of 
the world, and lives which are clean socially 
and commercially and politically, you will have 
a church upon which God has written " lcha- 
bod"; that is: " The glory has departed. The 
fellowship of every Christian church ought to 
be such that the moment a man steps into it 
he will feel that he is in a pure, live, holy, and 
sympathetic world, in which he gets spiritual 
electricity and life from every touch, and on 
every side. 

The second thing which I found in North- 
field which should be in every church was this : 

2. A living faith in a present God, and in Jesus 
Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour; and in im- 
mediate fruits from the faithful offer of salva- 
tion. 

But do not all churches present God as a pres- 
ent God? No. At first thought you may think 
they do ; but upon consideration you will see 
that they do not. They talk to you of God as 
a God of the past, and that is about all. He 
was the God of Abraham, and was with Abra- 
ham, and called Abraham, and worked through 
Abraham, and made Abraham a grand man. 
He was the God of Noah, and saved the world 
through Noah, and brought Noah through 
marvellous and startling experience. He was 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 17 

the God of David, and swept David's harp- 
nature ; and from every string caused a song 
of the soul to leap forth and thrill and inspire 
and create and voice spiritual life in the souls 
of men. He was with Isaiah and with the 
Apostles, and made them leaders of thought 
and pillars in the kingdom of God. That is 
what we hear in the churches to-day. God 
was the great God of the past. But that, 
good as it is and true as it is, is far from 
enough. We need a teaching that brings God 
up to date. That is what the teaching of 
Northfield does. In the teachings from the 
platform there, it is constantly impressed upon 
men that God is as much with men now as he 
ever was, and that he is knocking at the door 
of our being, seeking to make Abrahams out of 
us, Noahs out of us, Davids out of us, Isaiahs 
and Johns and Peters out of us. The result of 
the declaration of this faith in a present God, 
who to-day calls men and is with men, is this : — 
men leave the Northfield Conference every 
year with the conviction that they are as much 
called of God to their every-day work as Abra- 
ham was to his, or David to his ; and with this 
sense of their divine call they successfully do 
their work. Churches of God, that is what you 
want to do : you want to put a divine call into 



1 8 THINGS OF NOR TBFIELD 

the life of men, and give them the power to be 
successful in living. 

Another thing that they believe at North- 
field is this : that Christ is a complete Saviour, 
and he is a complete Saviour because he took 
our room and law-place, and in his own body- 
on the cross bore the penalty of sins. Now, 
that is not preached to-day as it was in olden 
days. There are ministers and churches that 
do not believe in the substitution of Christ in 
our room and stead. How they can claim to 
be scriptural I do not know. At one of the 
meetings of the Conference this year, I heard 
the great leader of Northfield go through the 
Bible from Genesis to Revelation, setting forth 
the substitution of Christ and salvation through 
his substitution ; and when he finished his mas- 
terly exposition, the people of that audience 
said to themselves: "When you take the sub- 
stitution of Christ out of the Bible, you have 
left nothing worth keeping, so far as salvation 
goes ; you may do with the rest of the Bible 
what you please." 

I tell you, churches of God, if you do not tell 
men who are under the debt of the law and the 
condemnation of sin that Christ has paid it all, 
you tell them absolutely nothing. It is noth- 
ing to tell them that they are condemned — they 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 19 

know that already ; their wicked hearts tell that ; 
what men need to be told is how they can be 
freed from the awful condemnation. They 
must be told of pardon through the blood of 
Christ. The news of salvation through Christ 
is true, and the message is so glad that no 
church should tolerate any substitute for it. I 
heard this story related from the Northfield 
platform, which illustrates the peace and com- 
fort of pardon through Christ. 

A criminal was on trial for capital misde- 
meanor. The evidence proved overwhelm- 
ingly against him. The law was explicit. 
There seemed no avenue of escape. The peo- 
ple grew anxious on his behalf, as the verdict 
of condemnation inevitably drew nearer. Yet 
all the while this prisoner at the bar kept inex- 
plicably calm. His eyes never once quailed, 
although the most damaging facts continually 
came to light. At last the jury returned and 
the fatal decision was rendered; but all that 
the culprit did was to draw a long sigh of un- 
mistakable relief. The bystanders marvelled 
at his self-control, and grew curious over the 
secret of his serenity, and especially when they 
imagined they detected in his unembarrassed 
demeanor a strange sort of triumph. By and 
by, when the sentence of death was pro- 



20 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

notmced, he arose in his place and laid before 
his judges a full pardon for the crime of which 
he had been just now convicted — a pardon which 
all along he had held hidden in his bosom. 
They examined the roll with eager scrutiny, 
and found that it really was his discharge. It 
left no further question. It had indeed been 
signed by the hand of their generous sovereign, 
and sealed with the grand signet of the realm. 
There remained no more to be done. And 
amid the shouts of the people the man went 
immediately forth free. The law's demands 
were cancelled. 

That is the sinner saved by Christ. He is 
so saved by Christ that there is forever no con- 
demnation against him. He is saved by the 
imputed righteousness of Christ. Do you say 
" I am afraid of this imputed righteousness 
business — I believe only in imparted right- 
eousness "? Never mind, have no fears on this 
score; because, in God's plan, imparted right- 
eousness always comes to the man to whom 
God credits imputed righteousness. 

The justified man is always made holy. 

It is my conviction that the church that can- 
not preach the imputed righteousness has noth- 
ing saving to preach. 

Now, if this doctrine be true, and this offer 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 21 

of complete salvation through Christ be genu- 
ine, the next thing which Northfield believes 
in is perfectly logical, viz. : immediate results 
— conversions on the spot. If our churches 
gave the message, " Christ has paid it all," and 
fully believed in the message as the truth of 
God, they, too, would look for sudden conver- 
sions, and would see them. Usually churches 
get just what they expect. Some people do 
not believe in sudden conversion, and they 
think they are orthodox. To my mind they 
are heterodox. For what saith the Scripture? 
Are not the most of the conversions recorded 
there sudden? Zaccheus was converted in 
coming down from the sycamore-tree and be- 
tween the branch and the ground. But you 
say that was because Christ was here on earth. 
That is not the explanation of it. People were 
converted faster after Christ left the earth than 
when he was here. After he went away, they 
were converted, three thousand in a day and 
five thousand in a day, and these thousands of 
converts were stubborn Jews at that. 

Professor Drummond describes a man who 
went into one of the after-meetings at North- 
field, and who said he wanted to become a 
Christian. He was greatly agitated. What 
was the trouble? He did not wish to tell. 



22 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

Finally he said: "The fact is, I have over- 
drawn my account." That was his polite way 
of putting it. He had been stealing. " Did 
you take your employer's money?" "Yes." 
" How much did you take? " " I don't really 
know." "Have you an idea that you stole as 
much as % i , 5 00 last year ? " "I am afraid it was 
as much as that." Now suppose Professor 
Drummond did not believe in sudden conver- 
sions. How would he deal with that man? He 
would say, " Look here, sir, I do not believe in 
sudden work; don't you steal more than a thou- 
sand dollars next year, and the next year not 
more than five hundred dollars, and in the course 
of years you will get so that you will not steal at 
all. If your employer catches you, explain it 
to him and tell him you are getting converted. " 
That is your slow conversion for you, and it is 
a mockery. The fact is, conversion is sudden 
or it is not at all. The climax of it is sudden. 
Churches of God, let us push men to turn at 
once from their evil lives. Let us present 
Christ as the Saviour of sinners, and urge men 
to the instantaneous, whole-hearted acceptance 
of him as such. If Christ has wrought salva- 
tion out to completion, and if he offers this 
completed salvation to men, the only reason- 
able thing for men to do is to take it, and take 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 23 

it at once, and then go and work from grati- 
tude and live for Christ who has saved them. 

The third thing which I found in Northfield, 
and which I feel should be in every Christian 
Church, is this: 

3. The enthronement of the Bible as the book 
of God, and as the sole authority of faith and 
manners. 

The Bible, and the full Bible, is in North- 
field. Every claim for faith is tested by the 
Book. Every practice proposed is applied to 
the line and the plumb-line of the divine com- 
mandment. The Book is never allowed to be 
the subject of debate. Questions about its 
composition and inspiration and fallibility 
never get a hearing. Not that Northfield 
means to be narrow, but because that is not 
its method of confirming the Scriptures and 
establishing its claims. Let others choose what 
other method they wish. Northfield claims 
the right to choose its method, and its method 
is the subjective method. It takes the Word just 
as it is, and lets it speak for itself to the heart 
and to the needs of men ; and thus prove itself 
and thus work its way into the lives and loves 
of men. Now that is a fair method, and in the 
long run it has been found to be the most ef- 
fective method. Men of Northfield believe in 



24 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

the Bible because, by means of a careful and 
thorough study of the Bible, the Bible has 
found them. Their hearts respond to it. They 
feel that they need it. 

Following this method, the Bible is studied 
by whole chapters and by topic and by whole 
books. And to me it is self-evident that this is 
the only way of getting at what is in the Bible, 
viz. : the study of the Bible by whole books. 
This method requires a Bible in the hand of 
every man and woman in the audience. And 
that is what you see largely at Northfield. Is 
that what you see in our churches? How many 
Bibles are in the pew-racks of your church? 
How much Bible is used in our pulpits? A 
text is taken to start from, and that is about 
all. Many a man in the pew, if he saw a 
Bible in his pew-rack, would be like the editor 
in the West, who found a Bible on his desk 
one day on entering his office, and who, after 
turning its pages, sat down and dashed off a 
review of it and sent it to the press, supposing 
that it was the last work of some unknown au- 
thor. But enough upon this point ; I shall take 
it up again when I come to you with a study 
of some of the books of the Bible. I shall make 
this part of Northfield of practical service to 
this church. 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 25 

The great thing which I saw at Northfield, 
and the thing which should above all be in 
every church, was this : 

4. The manifest power of the Holy Ghost 
working t7i and through consecrated men and 
making them pozvers for God. 

The baptism of the Spirit for power is the 
great corner-stone of Northfield. The need of 
this baptism is constantly taught. If you have 
not got this baptism, Christian, Northfield 
would bid you stand still and wait before God 
until God gives it to you. The one thing above 
all things which is asserted there, and asserted 
upon the authority of the Scriptures, is that 
this baptism can be secured by all who wish it 
and who are willing to submit to the conditions 
upon which it is bestowed. This is a great 
theme, and I mean on some near Sabbath to 
unfold it before you in the spirit of prayer and 
with fulness, opening to you the Book of God 
and showing you what the Word saith. 

Usually our churches think they have a re- 
vival, and have power, if they can only add 
numbers to the membership. At Northfield 
that is not the criterion of a revived church, 
or of a church with power. A man once said 
that he had a great revival in his church, and 
when asked, " How many have you taken in?" 



26 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

he replied, "We have not taken any in; we 
have put one hundred and fifty out." That 
man was of the Northfield type. Quality and 
not quantity meant revival and power with him. 
And that is correct. That is the New Testa- 
ment idea. Back in New Testament times, 
one hundred and twenty Spirit-filled men and 
women, endued with power from on high, 
meant the coming and the growth of great 
Christendom. 

In this matter of the power of the Holy 
Ghost, Northfield does not speculate. It has 
on its ground the proof and exemplification 
of its creed. Mr. Meyer, with his great spirit- 
ual power, which is felt in England and Amer- 
ica, is Northfield 's creed incarnate. And Mr. 
Moody himself is another incarnation. I have 
no hesitancy in saying that if the pulpits of 
Christendom, and the pews of Christendom, 
were filled with such men as Moody and Meyer, 
this world would become out and out for Christ 
before this century ran its course ; and more 
than this, the kingdoms of the earth would be 
loyal from centre to circumference to the au- 
thority of God. There is no doubt about it. 
It is Holy Ghost power that we need and that 
our churches need. 

I have been setting before your minds high 



WHICH SHOULD BE IN EVERY CHURCH. 27 

things — things which call for sacrifices upon the 
part of men and women — things which make 
religion look like a mighty conflict, a full life- 
work. Let me in closing present just this one 
point: If we make the sacrifices we shall be 
amply rewarded and honored by Him who calls 
us to make them. If we fight His battles we 
shall with him enjoy the victories. This story 
was told at Northfield, and it illustrates and 
enforces my point : 

"That was a glad day in England in 1855 
when the soldiers came back from the Crimean 
War, and the Queen gave them medals, called 
Crimean medals. Galleries were constructed 
for the two Houses of Parliament and for the 
royal families that they might witness the pre- 
sentation when her Majesty came to gwe the 
soldiers their rewards. There was one there, 
and he was honored above all the others, be- 
cause his fidelity led him to greater sacrifices. 
A cannon-ball took off one of his legs, but the 
brave fellow sprang up immediately and, taking 
hold of a tree, drew his sword and was ready 
to fight, even to death. Immediately another 
cannon-ball came crashing past and took off 
the other leg. They carried him, wounded, 
bleeding, and as they supposed dying, to the 
hospital. Strange enough, he came back to life 



28 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD 

again, and when the day came for the awarding 
of the medals, they carried him upon a stretcher 
before her Majesty the Queen. To other sol- 
diers the Queen simply gave medals by the 
hands of her secretary ; but when she saw this 
man carried in on a stretcher, his face so thin 
and pale, she rose from her throne and stooped 
down by his side and pinned with her own 
hands the medal upon his breast, while the 
tears rained down the face of the brave soldier. 
The great witnessing throngs were electrified, 
and spontaneously greeted Queen and soldier 
with a great deafening shout of applause. " 

That is but a faint picture of the home-going 
and the reception of the redeemed of God in 
heaven, as they go up from the fight for truth 
and from their hard-earned victories to their 
eternal reward. The King himself shall crown 
them, and shall say to every faithful one : " Well 
done, thou good and faithful servant; enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord. " 



WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE 
CONVERSIONS? 



" And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be 

saved."— Acts ii. 47. 
"And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes 

both of men and women."— Acts v. 14. 
14 And a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord." — 

Acts xi. 21. 



II. 

WHY ARE THERE NOT MORE CON- 
VERSIONS? 

We cannot value too highly this book of the 
Bible which gives us our three texts. The 
striking stories which it weaves together into 
the history of the Apostolic times are every 
one of them charged with light and hope and 
inspiration for all coming ages. No book 
renders a greater service to the Church of God 
than the book of " The Acts of the Apostles.'' 

Let me illustrate : As we close " The Gospels " 
in our study of the Bible, we close them with 
the vision of Christ's ascension. The beauti- 
ful earthly life of Christ is ended ; his miracles, 
which brought sight to the blind, health to the 
sick, life to the dead, are over. No more shall 
he walk and talk with the disciples. He has 
preached his last sermon on the Mount. What 
now? We have his gospel filled with lucid 
parable, golden promise, and holy principle 
3i 



32 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

and expressions of love and tender reproof : — 
we have his gospel just as it fell from his lips : 
yes, — but what is to be the future of his gospel? 
We are anxious to know if his truth can make 
its way on its own merit. When he was here, 
his truth had in its favor that singular mag- 
netic influence which came from his personal 
presence and from his audible voice. These 
gave it life and power and victory. By means 
of these it won Peter and James and John 
and the Twelve and the five hundred and the 
men and women who so thoroughly believed 
in him that they stood ready to sacrifice their 
all and die for him. Deprived of his mag- 
netic personal presence, deprived of his living 
voice, can his truth make its way and conquer 
hearts and lives by the sheer force of its celestial 
beauty and grace and comfort? Or must it 
perish now? Can voices other than the voice 
of the Divine Master make it a power? Ut- 
tered by the voice of Peter and married to his 
personality : uttered by the voice of Paul and 
married to his personality : uttered by the voice 
of Philip and married to his personality : what 
power shall it have? The Book of the Acts 
answers this question for us and sets our hearts 
at rest. 

When Jesus Christ ascended, he saw to it that 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 33 

his truth should not lose its power, and it did 
not: and it has not. He ordained that his 
Gospel of Grace should go right on converting 
and saving men ; and as he ordained, so it was. 
The Gospel reached and swayed three thou- 
sand souls on the Day of Pentecost, — souls from 
every land on the globe, — and it found in them 
three thousand new centres in the world, north 
and south and east and west. It found and 
conquered Paul, and through him blossomed 
and fruited into the grand Epistles of the New 
Testament. It found Lydia, and through her 
entered into the Oriental market and into 
Oriental commerce. It found Cornelius, and 
through him entered into the Roman army. 
It found the Ethiopian eunuch, and through 
him it made its way into the far-off land on the 
upper Nile. In the Book of the Acts we see 
the Gospel taking up its march through Europe 
on its way to America to bless us and save 
us. As our three texts tell us: there were 
" daily additions to the church." "Multitudes 
were saved." "Numbers were added unto the 
Lord." 

Our three texts, and the Book of the Acts in 
which they are found, teach two things with 
which we start the study of our theme : " Why 
are there not more conversions ? " 
3 



34 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

First, when there are no conversions, the fault is not 
in Christ, nor in God, nor in the Gospel. These are the 
same to-day that they were in the past. 

Second, when there are no conversions, the reason is, 
the conditions of the former days are not the conditions 
of to-day. Bring back Apostolic conditions, and you 
will have Apostolic results. 

I consider it a gain to reach these two points. 
I consider it a gain when we are willing to say : 
" God is not at fault ; we are at fault for the low 
ebb of the spiritual tide. " I consider it a gain 
when we recognize the fact that we do not have 
the apostolic conditions, and that this is the 
reason why so few are converted in our midst. 
I consider this a gain because the realization of 
the absence of these possible conditions is the 
first essential to the earnest endeavor to secure 
these conditions. There was earnest soul-seek- 
ing in Apostolic times ; there was the absolute 
acceptance of the Book of God as the one in- 
fallible guide of man; there was the faithful 
preaching of Christ and him crucified; there 
was self-sacrificing living ; there were pure and 
holy characters and personalities filled with 
Christ ; and there was pentecostal power. We, 
the churches of our age, have lost many of 
these things. We have lost Pentecost to begin 
with, and that is a lamentable loss. You are 
not full of the Holy Ghost and of power, are 



WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS ? 35 

you? And yet, as Christians, that is the birth- 
right of every one of you. It is not only your 
privilege, but your birthright. Give us back 
these Apostolic conditions, and there will be 
daily additions to the Lord right here: and 
multitudes of men and women will be saved 
right here. " Why are there not more conver- 
sions ? " We have not the Apostolic conditions : 
that is the reason. The converting agents are 
not what they ought to be. We are the con- 
verting agents, and there is something wrong 
in us. Before conversions abound in our 
midst that wrong must be righted. My Chris- 
tian brethren, we have struck an exceedingly 
practical subject. There is blame on the sin- 
ner's side, but there is blame also on the 
saint's side; and this last fact is the fact which 
I propose to consider. I wish to set every 
member of this church asking this question: 
"Am la help or a hindrance to the salvation 
of others ? " Church of God, look on your side 
of this question: " Why are there not more 
conversions ? " There are churches and Chris- 
tians that are spoiling religion every day: — 
they are offences, and stumbling-blocks. Is 
ours such a church? Am I such a Christian? 
It is ours to see that the unconverted have a 
fair show. Now they have not a fair show for 



3<5 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

the conversion of their souls, until the Apos- 
tolic conditions have been brought back and 
they have been submitted to the influence of 
these. The conditions which convert ! These 
we owe the non-converted, and these the non- 
converted have a right to demand from us. 
Hence I repeat my exhortation : " Church of 
God, look on your side of this question — Why 
are there not more conversions ? " 

I have already suggested my outline of 
thought. It is this : To find the hindrances 
to conversion by a study of the helps to con- 
version. Our three texts, and the Scriptures 
in which they are set, tell us what the helps to 
conversion are. These Scriptures set us right 
into the midst of conversions and allow us to 
fellowship with the converting agents of Apos- 
tolic times. Now the hindrances to conversion 
are the opposite s of the helps to conversion. What 
are the opposites of these helps? That is the 
present question, and it is an all-important 
question. 

By gathering together these opposites, and 
arranging them in their proper order, I have 
discovered many points relative to our theme. 
There are not more conversions, — 

i. Because the church as a converting agent is 
not up to par. 



WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS? 3 7 

In Apostolic times it is written : " The Lord 
added to the church daily such as should be 
saved." "A great number believed." "Be- 
lievers were added to the Lord, multitudes 
both of men and women. " Can we account for 
this marvellous increase? Yes. How? By the 
Christian church. The church was up to par. 
Look at the church of those converting times ! 
It was filled with the Spirit. It was unworldly. 
It was daily at work. It spared no sacrifice. It 
went through the world with the open Book in 
its hand : and to the Book it made its constant 
appeal. It believed everything that was in the 
Book. What Book? The Old Testament. It 
did not discount a single verse of that old Book. 
Look at what it preached. It preached the cross 
of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead, and 
the future judgment before the Great White 
Throne. It preached that man was lost and 
that Christ came to seek and to save the lost. 
It declared "there is no other name under 
Heaven whereby man can be saved, but the 
name of Jesus. " Look at what it did ! It gave 
itself up to soul-saving, and allowed nothing 
else to distract its attention or use up its time 
and power. It sought to save : and it did save. 
It gave a welcome to everybody; and con- 
stantly made a public declaration of its mis- 



3 8 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

sion; and constantly made a public offer of 
Christ and redemption through his name. It 
went after the lost. In the reception and treat- 
ment of the Holy Spirit : in the representation 
of Jesus the Master: in its desire to save and 
its effort to save, — it was up to par and above 
par. When the church is up to par and above 
par, there are conversions. That is the rule, 
and that rule is without a single exception. 
What we want in our day is churches of Jesus 
Christ up to par and above par. 

The churches of our day have lost their power. 
The people are not impressed by them as the 
people were impressed by the churches of the 
first century. The world is not moved by them 
to faith in Christ. The great world has lost con- 
fidence in them. The impression is abroad that 
they are hard-hearted ; that they are filled with 
pride ; that they narrow the hospitality of the 
house of God and go by the blue book of man ; 
that they are mere social clubs for the upper 
classes ; that money, and standing in society, and 
social caste, are the things which determine a 
hearty welcome into the churches, and not souls 
in need of salvation. The impression is abroad 
that the churches exist for themselves and not 
for the world. It is true that there is one great 
and good Shepherd : but all the sheepfolds are 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 39 

private property. There are multitudes of men 
in the community about us who respect the 
Christ of our Book, but who hate our Christian 
churches. In a large meeting of working-men 
which crowded Cooper Union, New York, some 
time ago, when the name of Christ was men- 
tioned as the workman of Nazareth and as the 
poor man's friend, his name was greeted with 
a round of applause; but when, at the same 
meeting, the Christian churches were referred 
to, they were greeted with a storm of hisses. 
I tell you, fellow churchmen, when the crowds 
outside of the church hiss the church, it is high 
time for us to stop and ask for the cause and 
the reason why. It is high time for us to ask 
ourselves the question : Are we so different 
from Christ that he should be applauded and 
we should be hissed? Are we representing 
Christ aright to the world — his desire, his 
heart, his purpose to save, his welcome into 
the Household of Faith? He has sent us out 
to save the world. Are we in right relations to 
the world, and is saving the world the supreme 
object of our existence as Christian churches. 
I verily believe God means to awaken the churches 
by the hiss of the world. When the world 
blushes for the church, it is time for the church 
to blush for itself. 



40 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

I am speaking plain words to the Church of 
God to-day, because I believe in the power of 
the church, and because I believe that each 
church gets just what it works for. When it 
works for conversions, and employs the means 
for conversions, it gets conversions. When it 
aims to make itself simply a home for the well- 
to-do, a home for social life, a place for mere 
entertainment, and the feeding of the pride of 
its fellowship, it succeeds in that. It becomes 
a mere club-house, with its music and oratory 
and opera and fine arts and sociables and re- 
ceptions; it becomes a refined play-house. 
When it aims at nothing, it gets nothing, and 
becomes cold and lifeless and weak. As Chris- 
tian churches we can have just what we want 
and seek. Hence our great responsibility as 
Christian churches. 

What a contrast between the statistics given 
in the scriptures which furnish our texts and 
the statistics given by the religious press of 
the churches of our time ! " Multitudes saved, " 
"numbers added unto the Lord," — such is the 
record of the Book of the Acts. The record of 
the religious press reads thus: In the year 
1895, thirteen hundred Congregational churches 
of America and seventeen hundred Presbyterian 
churches of America report no additions by con- 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 4* 

fession of faith — no conversions! Over three 
thousand churches in the leading evangelical 
denominations of our Christian land failing to 
report conversions during the last year ! How 
long will it take to convert the world to Christ 
at that rate? Add this report to the hiss of the 
world at the churches, and you will see the 
need of asking the question: " Why are there 
not more conversions ? " 

This is the greatest problem we have to con- 
sider ; it is a problem that will not down ; it is 
a live issue; and it is on our hands. The 
churches must settle it or it will settle the 
churches. Let us have the courage to look it 
fair in the face. Let us deal with it as it 
touches Brooklyn, and as it involves Lafayette 
Avenue Presbyterian Church. We are living 
in a city called " The City of Churches," and 
yet the fact is, more than half the people of 
our city do not go to church. How is it that 
here in this community, with tradition and cus- 
tom in its favor, religion is professed by com- 
paratively few? The churches are not reaching 
the people and saving souls as the primitive 
churches did. Why? Let us not be too cow- 
ardly to meet this question. 

I believe that worldliness in the churches 
of our community is one reason why. Our 



42 THINGS OF NORTHPIELD. 

churches are not separated unto God as they 
should be. They are not half spiritual enough. 
They allow themselves to be patronized by the 
world; they allow themselves to indorse the 
world ; they allow themselves to adopt the ways 
of the world. They do not exist and live for 
God and God only, as they should ; and there- 
fore, God does not dwell in them in a large and 
powerful degree : therefore, God does not give 
them his Spirit with power. God cannot trust 
them with the power of his Spirit. There is 
a Scripture in the Gospel according to John 
which comes in right here, and which throws a 
great light upon the weakness of the churches 
and the weakness of Christian men and women. 
It explains why these are not filled with the 
Holy Spirit and with power. It is John ii. 3. 
" Now when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the 
Passover, on the feast days, many believed in 
his name, when they saw the miracles which 
he did: but Jesus did not commit himself unto 
them." God cannot commit himself to a half- 
hearted people. The power of the Holy Ghost 
is religiously withheld from those who, while 
professing God's name, are serving divers lusts 
and pleasures, and are hand and glove with the 
world : — who are carnal Christians, and are liv- 
ing a carnal life. Christ will not commit him- 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 43 

self unto us until he can trust us. From all 
you know of this church, for our interest is es- 
pecially centred here, do you think Christ has 
committed himself to us? Could he do this 
without compromising his name? Is every- 
thing here in accord with his mind? Could 
he bestow upon us as a church the gift of the 
Holy Spirit, and be sure that the Spirit's power 
would be used solely for his glory? May God 
get us ready for the baptism of the Holy Ghost 
with power. When God has all there is of us, 
then he will give himself to us without re- 
serve : but not until then will he give himself 
to us without reserve. Let us not complain of 
the lack of conversions until we make right and 
effective the converting agent. 

To help us in making right the church, 
the converting agent, allow me to bring for- 
ward the following Scriptures, which describe 
what the church is in God's intention and what 
the church ought to be in fact: Hear the 
Scripture : 

" For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God ; 
the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people 
unto himself, above all people that are upon the face 
of the earth" (Deut. vii. 6). "And ye shall be holy 
unto me : for I the Lord am holy, and have severed 
you from other people that ye should be mine" (Lev. 
xx. 26). "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye 



44 THINGS OF N0RTHF1ELD. 

transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may 
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will 
of God" (Rom. xii. 2). "Wherefore come out from 
among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord : . . . 
and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, 
and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
Almighty" (2 Cor. vi. 17). 

These are clear Scriptures, and they set forth 
the power of the church. The church of God 
is a power as a converting agent only when 
there is a broad line of demarcation between it 
and the world ; and between its life and the 
world's life. When the men of the world come 
to the church of God and find it worldly, they 
are shocked. They lose the respect and the 
awe with which they have been accustomed to 
regard it, and they at once write it down in 
their estimation. When the church of God is 
written down in the estimation of men, it ceases 
to be a converting influence with men. 

I believe that God has a controversy with the 
churches in our midst. He brings grave charges 
against them. He says to them: " I have com- 
missioned you to reach the people, but you are 
not reaching the people. I have commissioned 
you to bring souls to salvation, but you are not 
bringing souls to salvation. I have commis- 
sioned you to guard my Holy Book, but you 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 45 

are not guarding my Holy Book : your minis- 
ters are putting interrogation points against 
this part of it, and against that part of it, 
and the result is the unbelieving world is 
putting an interrogation point against the 
whole of it. If the people of the churches 
do not rise up and protest against this back- 
handed destruction of the citadel of their faith, 
I will raise up advocates and defenders of the 
Book outside of the church and take the glory 
of its defence away from my people. I have 
commissioned you to preach the Gospel, but 
your ministers are preaching everything else 
but the Gospel: they are preaching science 
and literature and politics and criticism and 
socialism; they are putting their theories in 
the place of ' Thus saith the Lord. ' They are 
preaching salvation through development in- 
stead of salvation through the blood of Christ ; 
they are hiding the cross of Christ and making 
the cross of no effect. This is the state of 
affairs at this very hour, and the people love to 
have it so." 

You see, God's charge is brought not only 
against the ministers in the pulpit, his charge 
is brought also against the people in the pews. 
He holds the people responsible for what they 
tolerate in the pulpit. The pew as well as the 



4<$ THINGS OP NORTHFIELD. 

pulpit make the church. It is the indorse- 
ment of the pew that makes the utterances of 
the pulpit a power. 

I saw this illustrated grandly the other day 
in the salvation of souls. Cooper Union was 
crowded to the door with an audience that was 
not a churchgoing audience — an audience, too, 
composed largely of men. The simple Gospel of 
Christ was being preached in an honest, straight- 
forward way. The text was : " The son of man 
is come to seek and to save that which is lost." 
The power of God was at work there mightily, 
and over two hundred men rose to their feet to 
ask prayer, and to signify their intention to 
start out on the new and the divine life. What 
was it that produced these results? The utter- 
ances of the preacher solely? They had much 
to do with these results, for they were the ut- 
terances of the Gospel : but these results were 
not solely due to these utterances. As I 
watched and analyzed that meeting I found 
that the grand results sprang as much from the 
faith of the Christian listeners as from the faith 
of the preacher. There was one prominent 
Christian citizen sitting on the very front of 
the platform. As far as I am able to judge, 
the spiritual movement of that hour began with 
him. At one part of the sermon he became so 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 47 

moved that the tears rolled down his cheeks 
and he restrained them not. These tears were 
the visible tokens of his absolute surrender 
to the truth presented by the preacher. His 
tears and surrender moved others to tears and 
surrender, and thus the movement of faith and 
surrender swept the hall and moved multitudes 
to tears and surrender. Before that one man, 
on the front of the platform, surrendered him- 
self to the truth, there was but moderate in- 
terest in the gospel message of that day ; but 
out of his faith grew a whole community of 
faith and the conversion of sinners through 
faith. Oh for the enthusiasm and the faith of 
the people of the Christian churches of our 
land! That is what the Gospel is waiting for, 
and that is what sinners are waiting for. When 
the people want and demand that the pure 
Gospel of Jesus Christ shall be preached, they 
will get it ; and when they get it and become 
enthusiastic over it and indorse it by their 
tears and their self -surrender, their enthusiasm 
and their surrender and their indorsement will 
become contagious and sinners by the hundreds 
will be converted. 

But it is time for me now to present the sec- 
ond point of this sermon. There are not more 
conversions — 



48 THINGS OF NORTHFlELD. 

2. Because the individual Christian as a con- 
verting agent is not up to par. 

Multitudes were saved in apostolic times; 
but look at the individual Christians of those 
times! Peter, James, John, Paul. These men 
were duplicates of Christ. Give us duplicates 
of Christ and we shall have conversion now 
and here, just as they had conversion then and 
there. 

My fellow-men, let us open our hearts to this 
point upon which we are dwelling — viz. : God 
expects converts from the individual Christian 
as well as from the Christian churches. He 
calls Christians to account individually. As 
Jesus Christ multiplied himself, God expects 
us to multiply ourselves. He expects our 
Christian faith to bring forth other Christian 
faith. And it will, if we are what we ought 
to be, and if we do what we ought to do. 
This solemn fact presses home upon the in- 
dividual conscience this pointed question: 
" What am I as a converting force in the 
world?" I wish to locate the responsibility for 
the salvation of souls. Christian man, Chris- 
tian woman, the responsibility rests with you. 
You are one of God's spiritual seeds, and God 
expects a harvest from you. God comes to 
you this hour and asks you : " Where are your 



WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS ? 49 

converts? I gave you sons and daughters to 
bring up for me — where are they? Are they 
one with you in your Christian faith and life? 
I have given you brothers and sisters ; I have 
given you a Sabbath-school class ; I have given 
you partners in business; I have given you 
friends and neighbors; have you reproduced 
yourself in them? Where are your converts? 
If you have associated with people and have 
not led them to Christ, you have done them 
more harm than good. " If you have not se- 
cured their conversion, you have neglected 
them ; or else you have misrepresented Christ 
to them and have given a wrong idea of the 
true Christian life; or else your Christianity 
has been so ordinary as to be repulsive to them 
rather than attractive. Your conversion is not 
up to par, and men have seen this and have 
refused to invest in it. And I do not blame 
them. 

When men can get a better conversion out- 
side of the church than we Christians get in- 
side of the church, no one can find fault with 
them for holding on to their conversion and 
rejecting our conversion. Let us be honest 
and admit that this is one of the reasons why 
there are so few conversions : men outside of 
the church are not willing to exchange their 
4 



SO THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

conversion for the conversion of multitudes of 
people who are in the church. The conversion 
we offer them is below par, when judged by 
ourselves as converts. We want to get a little 
more saved ourselves than we are, and then we 
can save others. We must offer the people of 
the world something better than they already 
have. We must show them Christians up to 
par, and offer them a Christianity that is above 
par, if we are ever to reach them. The men 
of the world are moved Christ- ward only by an 
anointed tongue and a transfigured life. They 
demand as their guide a living Gospel and a 
living Christian. They respect only Spirit- 
baptized souls. As Emerson puts it with re- 
gard to eloquence so we may put it with regard 
to salvation : " There is no true eloquence unless 
there is a man behind the speech," — even so 
there must be a saved man behind the offer of 
salvation in order to make that salvation seem 
real to the unsaved. When you tell an un- 
saved man that you are saved, he will ask you, 
" Saved from what ? " And if you are to have 
any influence with him, you must be able to 
show him from what you are saved. You must 
show him something which you have reached, 
through faith in Jesus Christ, which he has not 
reached: something which it is profitable to 



WHY NOT MORE CONVERSIONS? 5* 

reach and desirable to reach. We do not con- 
vert others, because our own conversion is 
below par. 

Am I wrong in insisting as I do upon a bet- 
ter brand of ourselves as Christian converts 
and upon a new and higher and a more radical 
and more thorough conversion of our own 
hearts and lives? Not if we want more con- 
versions. It is personality that influences us. 
It is the gospel incarnate that is the gospel in 
power. It is the man, it is the woman, that 
tells. It is the convert himself that in turn 
converts. Seek, then, for yourself a converting 
personality. 

Dr. Watson, in his Yale lecture on preaching, 
sets before theological students in a beautiful 
way the supreme importance of putting a fine 
personality back of the Gospel message in order 
to make it a power. He does this by giving a 
life-picture of a preacher with an ideal char- 
acter. This preacher is not over-blessed with 
mentality ; but he lives his religion. To others 
he is commonplace ; but to his own people he 
is the best preacher in the world. Why? His 
people know him. They read his character 
between the lines of his address. Sitting in 
the pew, they edit his sermons anew with 
foot-notes, which by and by eclipse the origi- 



52 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

nal. His people are fairly overcome by his 
lovely illustrations, his deep arguments, his 
moving appeals. But these are not newly writ- 
ten ; they are not written at all : they are deeds 
ten, twenty, thirty years old. The people put 
the man into his sermons, and this makes his 
sermons great and effective. 

In bringing my sermon to its conclusion, I 
wish to make but one practical point. It is 
this: The facts which we have discovered in 
our study lay upon the converting agents — the 
church and the individual Christian — a present 
and an imperative duty. 

It is the duty of the church and of the indi- 
vidual Christian openly to confess their faults 
and publicly prof ess a change of life. 

For example, this church should issue- its 
manifesto to the community of Brooklyn on 
the Hill. It should confess its deadness. It 
should tell why it exists. It should confess its 
sins and shortcomings. It should speak truth- 
fully of the things upon which it has spent its 
force. It should name just what it has done 
for the conversion of souls. It should show 
what it might have done, and confess what it 
has left undone. It should tell the number of 
people who have been lost out of its fellow- 
ship. There are ways of being lost, out of the 



WH Y NOT MORE CON VERSIONS ? 5 3 

very centre of the church. This is the way a 
man falls out of the church : he is absent, and 
no one inquires about him or goes after him 
to bring him back. He is missed nowhere — 
then he is expected nowhere ; and finally, as a 
natural consequence, he goes nowhere : he has 
no church-home: he is lost. In this public 
manifesto the church should promise what it 
means to do. It means to have some open free 
service at some regular time for the public — 
free and open to everybody. It means to live 
not for itself, but for God, and for the lost 
world, and for the immediate community. It 
means to see that the Bible is honored, and 
the cross honored, and a pure Gospel preached 
and practised. I wish I could set every man 
and woman belonging to the membership of 
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church at work 
writing a manifesto to be issued by the Church 
to the public. I should give a great deal to 
have such a collection. It would be a great 
revelation. It would give our membership a 
new insight into what a church of Jesus Christ 
ought to be. It would give us a vivid knowl- 
edge of our failings as a church ; it would show 
us our possibilities; it would lead us to do 
things differently, and it would be a large step 
toward a revival of religion. 



54 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

Every crmrch of Jesus Christ in the United 
States ought to issue some such manifesto to the 
public. It would be good for the public, and it 
would be good for the churches. It would 
bring about a relation and an understanding 
between the churches and the public which 
would lead to a new church life, and to a multi- 
tude of conversions. 

The confession of our faults! That is the 
duty of the hour. There was a man of God 
once who, during the early years of his Chris- 
tian career, was noted for his extraordinary 
devoutness, zeal, and self-sacrifice ; but gradu- 
ally and imperceptibly to himself, he fell from 
his first love. He still abounded in good works 
of a certain kind, and was looked up to by or- 
dinary Christians as a pattern of piety. But he 
was not up to the Lord's mark; so the Lord 
showed him whence he had fallen. He did 
this by bringing him into close contact with a 
man filled with the Spirit and burning with 
zeal for the salvation of souls. When he looked 
upon this man's work, by the law of contrast, 
there flashed on him the conviction that he had 
lost his first love. He said to himself: " I was 
once like that man: I felt as he does: I re- 
joiced as he does: I prayed as he does: I la- 
bored as he does: but I am not like him now. 



IV H Y NOT MORE CON VER SIONS ? 55 

O my God! I am a backslider from thee and 
from all good! " The discovery almost over- 
whelmed him. He realized its bitterness, and 
agonized over its consequences until his dis- 
tress reached a climax. Then kneeling down 
he prayed in an agony, telling God that if he 
would restore him his first love, he would con- 
fess his heart-backsliding to his brethren, and 
do all in his power to counteract the evil effects 
of his coldness and unfaithfulness. The Lord 
heard his prayer and answered it. This was 
what the Lord wanted of his servant, in order 
to his pouring in the oil and wine of his love 
and consolation. Like the disciples on the day 
of Pentecost, he rose from his knees filled with 
the Spirit. The next day there was an official 
meeting of the church at which he had to take 
part. At the appointed time some dozen of 
the leading men assembled. After the busi- 
ness was gone through with, he asked to be 
allowed to make a few remarks: and then 
with the simplicity of a child he related his 
experience of the last few days. He con- 
fessed to his brethren his backsliding, and told 
them how the Lord had convicted him of it, 
and how graciously he had restored him to 
his first love. The brethren present were 
melted to tears: they sobbed like children. 



56 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

When he finished they all broke forth into a 
general confession and told of their unfaithful- 
ness. They remained confessing their sins 
until midnight. As one after another poured 
out his sins in confession and supplication, the 
Holy Ghost fell on them, and there commenced 
in that room on that memorable night a genu- 
ine revival of religion in their church, which 
swept hundreds into the Kingdom. This is the 
power of confession. 

Who is going to start the confession of back- 
sliding in this church which will bring us a re- 
vival in the individual heart and life, and in the 
heart and life of this great congregation? Who 
is going to start the confession among us which 
will result in the taking away of the barriers 
which stand between this church and the con- 
version of souls? God asks the question, Who? 
the church asks the question, Who? the lost 
soul in our community asks the question. Who? 
Who? 



Topic : " When we become Christians and churchmen — 
what when? " 



OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS AND 

WHAT WE NEED FOR 

EFFECTIVENESS. 

44 Compel them to come in."— Luke xiv. 23. 

57-58 



III. 

OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS AND 
WHAT WE NEED FOR EFFEC- 
TIVENESS. 

The task of Christians is self-evident. The 
very name which Christians bear reveals it. 
It is this: To be as Christ in the community 
and to do Christ's work in the world. As 
Christians we have been saved that we may 
save others. The magnet has been magnetized 
that it may magnetize. Our task is to do as 
much for those around us as has been done for 
us : to win some friend to Christ as some friend 
has won us to Christ. To tell the story of our 
salvation. To transmit Christianity to poster- 
ity. To keep the home for God. To purify 
society by transfusing it with the Spirit of 
God. To erect the cross in view of every crea- 
ture. To put an open Bible into every hand. 
To save the perishing race. To Christianize 
commerce, and fashion, and art, and pleasure. 
59 



60 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

To incarnate Jesus of Nazareth in all the insti- 
tutions and governments of earth. To keep 
the church loyal to the truth of the crucified 
Christ ; pure in doctrine and pure in life, and 
enthusiastic in its saving work, and full of the 
Spirit of fire. To ring the world round and 
round with hosannas to the Son of David, and 
to keep it so ringed. Such is our mission, and 
such, too, is the great purpose of the reigning 
God. 

While this is the purpose of the reigning 
God, yet we ourselves must fulfil our own 
mission and do our own work. God will co- 
operate with us, but he will not take our place 
or do that which we neglect to do. Let us 
write this down as a certain ty— God will never 
do that zvhick we ourselves can do. This has 
always been so. He will multiply the loaves 
and fishes, but he will not distribute them. 
The disciples must do that, for they can do 
that. He will raise Lazarus from the dead, 
but he will not roll away the stone from the 
sepulchre of Lazarus ; the friends must do that, 
for the friends can do that. He will purchase 
redemption for man and pay the great price 
for it, because only he can do that ; but man 
must carry the offer of this purchased redemp- 
tion to his fellow-man, because this is what man 



OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 61 

is able to do. This all the saved are commis- 
sioned to do. 

God has purposed great things for his peo- 
ple ; but they are conditioned. The condition 
is this: God's people must take these things. 
It is with us as it was with the Hebrews. God 
made them the promise of the Holy Land. 
He drew for them the outlines of the Land of 
Promise, and held the map up to view for their 
inspiration, and told them that all should be 
theirs ; but he made a condition. That condi- 
tion was this: they must march through the 
length and the breadth of the land and meas- 
ure it off with their own feet — that is, they 
must take it. These are God's words to Josh- 
ua : " Everywhere that the sole of your foot 
shall tread upon, that give I unto thee." To 
tread the land they had to eject the enemies 
who pre-occupied it. The Hebrews never trod 
more than one-third of the property mentioned 
in God's grant; consequently they never had 
more than one-third of what God intended 
them to have. They had just what they meas- 
ured off with their own feet and no more. 
God, in His holy purpose and promise, has 
given us the world for Jesus Christ our Mas- 
ter; but that purpose and promise will never 
be realized until we work for it and make the 



62 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

world Christ's by toiling, triumphant, evange- 
listic work. 

Are we taking the world for Christ as rapid- 
ly as we should? Is everybody at work, and at 
work in downright earnest? Are you at work, 
and are you satisf3'ing yourself with your work? 
Are you a hot saint? What do you know about 
"compel them to come in"? Oh, what an 
amount of sham there is in our religious pro- 
fession, and what an amount of hollow mock- 
ery there is in our pretension of work for Christ ! 
Our prayer for revivals and for a spiritual visi- 
tation is for the most part a mere form and is 
sheer hypocrisy. The church of God can have 
a revival of religion any day — a revival as deep 
and as powerful as it is possible for her to ask — 
if she will only comply with the conditions 
upon which God has promised to grant it. 

Are we satisfied with the way things are in 
Christendom? Are there not coldness, and dead- 
ness, and dearth in the Christian churches, which 
we cannot help feeling? Is there not a great 
want somewhere? There is a vast amount of 
effort put forth, there is enormous expenditure, 
there is the multiplication of instrumentalities 
on every hand : but the results — where are these? 
The results do not correspond with the outlay. 
What is the secret? What is the cause of the 



OUR TA SK A S CHRIS TIA NS. 6 3 

failure? It is this: We are not honoring the 
Holy Ghost as we should; we are ignoring 
him and his functions and rule ; we are leav- 
ing him out of our work, and hence we are 
working without that enduement of power 
which comes from on high. But what is writ- 
ten? This: " It is not by might, nor by pow- 
er, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." It is the 
power of the Holy Spirit versus the might of 
intellect, and learning, and eloquence, and po- 
sition, and wealth, that carries in it success in 
Christian effort. 

The church to-day is like Israel of old — " she 
hath multiplied her defenced cities, and. her 
palaces, but she hath forgotten the God of Is- 
rael, in whom her strength is." The strength 
of the church is the Spirit of the Almighty 
God. The strength of the church is a perpetual 
Pentecost. It is by Pentecostal gifts and 
methods that the church is to win the people. 
God has not abrogated these yet, and until he 
does we must work by them, or else we will 
work in vain. 

How often during these later times do we 
hear discussions concerning the "lapsed 
masses"! And how often is the question 
asked, " Why have the masses lapsed from the 
churches?" I beg leave to answer that accord- 



H THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 

ing to my way of thinking : the masses have 
not lapsed from the churches ; it is the churches 
that have lapsed from the masses. 

It is the churches that have become indiffer- 
ent to the fallen. The churches are full of 
elder brothers, i.e., the people who have no 
real and helping sympathy with the fellows 
who are down ; who prate continually about the 
sins of the masses, the vices of the masses, 
the heartlessness and the ingratitude of the 
masses, instead of talking about the salvation 
of the masses. These are the people who have 
moved the churches away from the masses, and 
now slander the masses by charging them with 
dropping the church. 

My friends, we talk of the unconverted and 
of their duty of repentance. I tell you that 
there is a repentance which we people of the 
churches need. It involves mental suffering, 
but we should go through it. We should repent 
that the flesh is in us after our regeneration, and 
very much in us. We should repent that we 
have been unfaithful to God's saving grace ; we 
have been untrue to Christ's saving love; 
we have been neglectful of the dying world ; we. 
have hidden the cross from the view of the un- 
saved. All this demands our speedy repentance. 

When the churches of God do their duty, the 



OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 65 

people will do theirs. When the Christian 
churches get back their Pentecost, it will be 
written of the nineteenth century, as it was 
written of the first century, "So mightily 
grew the Word of God and prevailed." "The 
trouble is that the churches have lost their 
way to the 'upper room.' Let a church only 
find its way back there and obtain a Pente- 
cost from God ; let pulpit and pew be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and the 
people will come running in to see the burn- 
ing. That church will not need to cater to the 
fleshly elements in mankind, nor deal in baits 
to catch the masses; the people will come 
climbing into her pews as Zaccheus of old 
climbed into the branches of the sycamore- 
tree, when he wanted to see the Lord. The 
people still want Jesus." 

My fellow-men, the state of affairs which now 
exists ought not to exist ; there is no necessity 
compelling things to be so. It is this state of af- 
fairs — viz. : the disparity between results and 
expenditures and the coldness of the great 
multitudes of Christian confessors — and the 
tarrying of the millennial glory of Zion, that 
call for a present and careful discussion cf the 
question before us: " What do we need for 
effectiveness ? " 
5 



66 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

I propose now to enumerate some of these 
needs as they present themselves to my view. 
I mention this to begin with — viz. : 

i. The very first requisite for successful 
Christian work is a start. 

You may think this is not worth a mention : 
but it is. It is what some of you as yet do not 
know. You have not yet started to work for 
Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls — I mean 
started to work in dead earnest. With the 
vast majority of people, this is the most diffi- 
cult thing of all, to start work ; to tell the story 
of their salvation the first time; to give the 
first invitation; to make the first effort to in- 
vade the personality of another and bring its 
soul face to face with Jesus Christ. To make 
a start, they have to overcome timidity and 
prejudice and foreboding, and fear of giving 
offence, and apprehension lest the besought 
may be driven away from Christ rather than 
attracted to him. How many questions a man 
asks himself when he begins evangelistic testi- 
mony-bearing work: when he actually seeks to 
save his first soul for Christ ! " Am I the best 
party to speak to that soul? If I speak to him, 
am I sure that I shall say the right word? 
Does God want me to speak to him? How will 
he receive me? Oh, who is sufficient for this 



OUR TASK AS CHRIS TIA NS. 7 

great soul-saving work? " It is hard to begin, 
but, Christian, do your duty and God will stand 
by you. The Spirit of God will see to the re- 
sults. With the results you have nothing to 
do: you have to do only with your duty. The 
Spirit will supplement your deficiency. It is 
the Spirit that prompts you, and you shall find, 
when you do your part, that the one to whom 
you speak has marvellously been made ready 
for your word. The Spirit will overrule your 
blunders and straighten out your imperfec- 
tions of service. 

Canon Wilberforce tells this story of Her- 
komer, the great English portrait painter: 
Herkomer had an old father who lived with 
him in his splendid palace at Bushy. In his 
early life his father used to model in clay. 
In his old age his great fear was that his 
work would show imperfection. It was his 
one sorrow, as he retired to bed every night, 
that he had lost his art. Knowing this, his 
talented son went into his father's studio after 
he was asleep, and took up the tools and made 
his father's feeble attempts as beautiful as art 
could make them. When the old man came 
down in the morning and looked at his work, 
he used to rub his hands in perfect delight and 
exclaim : " Ah, I can do it as well as I ever did I 



68 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

See! The work speaks for itself!" In some 
such way the Spirit will supplement your work 
and make up for your defects. Begin, trust 
him, test him, and see for yourself if he will 
not. 

It is in Christian work as it is in making a 
fortune, the hardest part is the start. The 
first thousand is the hardest thousand to win. 
John Jacob Astor in his old age is reported to 
have said that given these two alternatives, 
to start from where he started with nothing 
and work his way into possession of ten hun- 
dred dollars, or to go on from the ten hundred 
and amass the large amount he had gathered 
together, he would accept the latter alterna- 
tive. To start is the difficulty. But what after 
the start? Why this: comparatively speaking, 
the work will take care of itself. You do not 
need to ask that question. Save your first soul, 
and the joy coming to you from that will give 
you such an impetus in Christ's work that you 
will forget all about difficulties. The work itself 
will bind you to itself. The work itself will 
bring you accumulated strength, and knack and 
tact, and a knowledge which will become wis- 
dom. You sow strength and you reap strength. 
You sow improved opportunities, and you reap 
opportunities waiting to be improved. You 



OUR TASK AS CHRJS TIA NS. 6 g 

sow the power to save one soul, and you reap 
the power to save two souls. Christian, you 
express your desire to work for Christ. That 
is right. But do not stop with expressing de- 
sire : begin to work, and begin at once. Begin, 
begin, and everything will follow in due order. 
A gentleman in New York put into my hand 
a little booklet entitled " A Day's Time-Table." 
The booklet bears right on this point. The 
heroine of the book is a young woman who 
lives in the home of wealth and fashion. She 
is a Christian. In her devotional reading of 
the Bible one day she came across this verse 
in Deut. xi. 21: " That your days may be 
as the days of heaven upon the earth." She 
said to herself, " I have no such days on earth. " 
Then she began to wish that God would give 
her a time-table from Heaven for each day, 
and fill it with duty to be done each hour of the 
day. That would make earth-days Heaven- 
days. She longed to do Christian work and 
be useful; but how, she did not know. A 
voice within said to her, Only begin and God 
will see to coming time. A poor girl that day 
came to her father's house on business. Her 
father being absent from home, it fell to her 
lot to talk with the girl. She accepted that as 
her opportunity from God. The girl was an 



7© THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

invalid and needed help and sympathy, and 
she gave these to her. In doing her duty to 
this poor girl she started to work for Christ. 
The result was this: the work of that one 
hour grew and shaped itself and developed 
slowly into an organization for invalids, then 
into a seaside home, and then into lives 
brightened and restored to health, and then into 
hearts won for Jesus Christ. Was this all? 
Not all. She herself was developed all around 
in her religious nature ; she was brought into 
the broadening fellowship of other consecrated 
workers and was enriched by their experience 
and aspirations. A sick minister whom she 
met helped her as he carried on his work in 
his sick-room and served the Lord in what he 
was accustomed to call his " sofa-diocese. " 
He taught her to conduct all her transactions 
with the great Unseen. Her Bible became to 
her a new book. Before this it brought her 
only a Gospel of salvation : but now it brought 
her in addition a Gospel of guidance. Some 
new power touched its verses and chapters with 
a holy light, and made it all the time-table 
of life that she felt she needed. Her whole 
life became a service of God, and everything 
she did became " Kingdom-work. " She start- 
ed, and God took care of the rest. Our first 



UR TA SK A S CHRIS TIA NS. 7 1 

need in order to the successful meeting of our 
task is to start. Have you started? 

2. Our second need for effectively meeting our 
task is the stimulus and help which one gets 
from keeping one' s-self in touch with a live 
Christian fellowship. 

One of the uses of the church of Christ with 
its fellowship is just this: to secure for its 
members the necessary equipment for spiritual 
service. It provides a common fund of ex- 
perience, and tact, and faith, and knowledge, 
and enthusiasm from which all are permitted 
to draw. Here in the temple of God it is ex- 
pected that Christian will communicate with 
Christian backward and forward by way of 
loving exchange. It is here that we give and 
receive. Every church, every temple of God 
should be such an exchange. There is a charm- 
ing tradition coming down to us from the rab- 
bins relative to the site upon which Solomon's 
Temple was erected, which is in point here. 
The place is said to have been owned in com- 
mon by two Hebrew brothers. One of the 
brothers had a family, the other had not. On 
this very spot was sown a field of wheat. On 
the evening of the harvest-day, the wheat hav- 
ing been gathered into shocks in the field, the 
elder brother said to his wife : " My younger 



72 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

brother is unable to bear the burden and heat 
of the day ; I will arise and take of my shocks 
and place them with his without his knowl- 
edge." The younger, being actuated by the 
same benevolent motive, said within himself: 
" My elder brother has a family, and I have 
none ; I will arise and take of my shocks and 
place them with his. " The next day they were 
both astonished to find that their respective 
shocks remained undiminished. This course 
of events transpired for several nights, when 
each resolved in his own mind to go on guard 
and solve the mystery. They did so, and on 
the following night they met each other with 
their respective shocks in their arms on their 
way to make their loving exchange. It was 
upon ground hallowed by such loving associa- 
tions that the temple of Solomon was erected. 
This story of the rabbins is a parable; it 
teaches that every temple of God in which the 
people of God fellowship should be a place where 
brethren shall exchange mutual gifts and where 
they shall communicate the one to the other. 

We can receive much from one another, be- 
cause we have a great influence the one with 
the other. We search one another, we rebuke 
one another, we chill one another, we stimu- 
late one another, we educate one another, we 



OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 73 

interpret one another, and we do this by our 
simple presence. We see this illustrated in a 
hundred ways in daily life. A handsome wom- 
an, for example, interprets and measures the 
homeliness of all women not handsome, when 
these come into her presence or when she goes 
into their presence. A tall man, for example, 
interprets and reveals and measures the short- 
ness of short men who come into his presence. 
Short men know this. There are short men 
who know it so well that they positively re- 
fuse to go into a room where there is a single 
tall man. I do not blame them. They de- 
sire to have all the credit of what little height 
belongs to them, without any invidious com- 
parison. We judge one another. We reveal 
one another by our simple presence ; therefore 
the presence of a hopeful, constant, efficient 
Christian worker is one of the greatest powers 
for Christ and for the cause of Christian work. 
He is an inspiration among workers. He cre- 
ates an atmosphere of enterprise in which great 
plans for God are formed. He instructs. He 
suggests methods of work. Brethren, keep 
constantly in the fellowship of such. 

Let me illustrate the way we are equipped 
for our Christian task by getting lessons from 
a living fellowship in the household of faith. 



74 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

Here is a man who wins souls to Christ by 
the score. But how does he do it? By aiming 
at great things? No. By aiming at compara- 
tively small things. He individualizes. He 
works upon souls one at a time. He covets 
some particular man for Christ, and goes to 
him and reasons with him, and keeps going to 
him until the man surrenders to Christ. He 
makes him a study day and night. From this 
man we learn to individualize in our Christian 
work. To master this lesson is one of the 
needed equipments in the service of saving 
souls. For souls are saved, not in the mass, 
but one by one. 

Here is another man who makes great use of 
prayer in carrying on the work of the Lord. 
With him prayer is always the precursor of 
work: just as it was with Peter when he opened 
the doors of the Christian church to the great 
Gentile world. From him we learn the value 
of prayer as an instrument and a preparation for 
Christian service. Here is a man who exalts 
the Bible in his work. I knew such a man, and 
he gave me a lesson that has been helpful to 
me in Christian work for many years. The 
Bible was a finality with him. He admitted 
of no appeal from it. In dealing with unsaved 
souls, he positively refused to discuss its merits 



OUR TASK AS CHRIS TlA NS. 7 5 

or demerits. He took for granted that it was 
the Word of God beyond all peradventure. He 
related to me one case illustrating his method 
of work. He fell in one day with a sceptical 
young college student, who felt that he had the 
arguments at his tongue's end which wholly 
annihilated Christianity. He made one state- 
ment after another against Christianity. My 
friend said " I simply met each statement with 
an apt quotation from the Bible. " The young 
man kept replying : " Oh, that is from the Bible. 
I do not believe in the Bible. " My friend said : 
" God says it, young man, whether you believe 
or not." A few weeks after, the young man 
came to him and said : " I am a Christian, and 
I want to thank you that you helped me to 
become such. It was the Bible you quoted 
that took hold of me and brought me to faith. 
If you had argued with me, I should have been 
an infidel still ; but you just made God speak 
to me, and that did the work." You will save 
no souls if you do not believe in the Bible 
through and through and without a question 
or a doubt. It is the Book that carries weight 
with men. Men will a hundred cases out of one 
hundred and one believe the Book when they 
will not believe you. A man only who is full of 
the Book is well equipped for his Christian task. 



76 THINGS OF N0RTHF1ELD. 

Christian workers, associate with men in 
whom is the divine life, who are daily living 
in prayer, who are planning for God's cause, 
and spending themselves in his service; and 
from their presence go out to labor for your 
Master full of their contagion and enthusiasm, 
strong with their strength, alive with their 
hope, tactful with their versatility, all on fire 
with their love for souls, partakers of their un- 
wavering faith, and well equipped with their 
experience. 

Another requisite for our Christian task is : 

3. An effective Christian personality. 

This is our chief furniture in Christian work. 
This is a requisite away beyond any that I 
have as yet named. It is the incarnation of 
all the other requisites. You may be able to 
quote most fluently the Bible in answer to the 
objections of the sceptic, but if you have not a 
real and effective Christian personality to put 
back of your apt quotation, you will spoil the 
Bible and render its most beautiful and pun- 
gent sayings powerless. 

It is the man, or the woman, back of the 
Scripture quotation that gives it its force. It 
is the man back of the sermon that makes the 
sermon a power. 

Spurgeon tells us that he went once to hear 



OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 77 

George Muller preach, that man whom God 
has so lately crowned with his eternal crown ; 
that man who did so much for the orphans and 
who carried on his great enterprises on the 
capital of simple faith. He says of George 
Muller's sermon: " Oh, it was such a soul feast 
to me." "Why? Was the sermon grand, Mr. 
Spurgeon?" "No, it was not. There was no 
grandeur about it. It was as plain a sermon 
as ever I heard. It was the man in the ser- 
mon that moved me and thrilled me. It was 
George Muller's spiritual strength poured into 
my emptiness that fed me. If many another 
man had preached it, it would have been profit- 
less to me. But it was profitable to me be- 
cause it came out of George Muller's life and 
because George Muller was back of it." My 
experience in hearing George Muller was the 
very opposite of Mr. Spurgeon 's. When he 
was in this country years and years ago, he 
preached here in Brooklyn. I came over from 
New York to hear the pastor of the church in 
which he preached. The pastor was away, and 
I was told George Muller of England was going 
to preach. He did preach. He took the whole 
of the twenty-third Psalm and expounded that. 
I thought it was as flat as anything I ever lis- 
tened to from the pulpit. And I went away 



73 THINGS OF NORTBFIELD. 

unfed and disappointed. Was it George Mul- 
ler's fault? It was not. It was David Gregg's 
fault. David Gregg was a very young man 
then, a hide-bound close-communion Scotch 
Covenanter, and he did not know a single thing 
about George Muller. He had never heard of 
him before. He did not know the personality 
that evolved the sermon and which was behind 
the sermo n. It would be different now if I heard 
George Muller preach. I know George Muller 
now and I love George Muller now ; and a ser- 
mon from him now, with his personality back 
of it, would be a gospel feast to me. 

In calling us to labor for him, God first of all 
bids us look after what we are by way of faith 
and sincerity, love, and holiness of life. He 
wishes us to be up to the full weight spiritu- 
ally, because he will then have in us a mighty 
witness of his power and purpose. He knows 
that men can believe that there is a God up in 
Heaven when they see a God dwelling in our 
heart down here. The greatest evidence of 
spiritual religion is a holy life. The best ser- 
vice you can render to the Master is to be like 
him. Character is service, A man keeping 
himself pure in the midst of impurity, a man 
who keeps his love in the midst of the bitter 
sarcasm of a cruel world, a man who repro- 



UR TA SIC A S CHRIS TIANS. 7 9 

duces the holy character of Christ in this sinful 
generation, is the most irrefragible argument 
that God is true, and that God's Word is true. 
The man who lives the resurrection-life is the 
strongest proof of the resurrection. 

The chief thing to be looked after in carry- 
ing on the work of Jesus Christ on earth is to 
see to it that Jesus Christ is truly represented 
among men by those who professed to be his 
and to live his life. If as Christians we do not 
in our own personalities give the world the 
very best representation of him, he will not 
be appreciated, he will not be accepted by oth- 
ers. Two men stopped on the street to talk. 
Just then a street-organ struck up a tune. 
The hand-organ was a mean, rickety instru- 
ment, and did nothing but wheeze and groan 
and give forth distortions and sounds in spasms. 
" Let us move on and get rid of that abominable 
tune," said the one to the other. His friend 
replied : " The tune is all right. Do you not 
know what it is? " " No, and I do not care to 
know. I never can be made to like it. " " Why 
not? it was written by Handel, and is called 
'See the Conquering Hero Comes.'" "Well 
then, Handel wrote a very poor thing." "I 
cannot allow Handel's work to be slandered 
thus: you must come with me to the Handel 



8o THINGS OF NORTHFIELD, 

festival, and hear that tune as it ought to be 
rendered. " A month later the admirer of Han- 
del took his friend to the Handel festival. As 
the man listened to that sound of harping sym- 
phonies and sevenfold hallelujahs, he was es- 
pecially carried away with one part. He went 
into raptures in his praises of it. Asking his 
friend what that part was called, he was utterly 
amazed at the reply : " That is * See the Conquer- 
ing Hero Comes!' " There are Christians and 
Christians, and there is as much difference be- 
tween them as there is between a creaking 
hand-organ that croaks out, in paroxysms and 
gasps, Handel's great production, and the finely 
selected and managed orchestra that makes 
Handel's great production thrill. We wish 
Christ presented to men at his best, that 
men may love him. Only the fine Christian 
personality can present him at his best — but 
it can. 

We have all known men who have made 
Christ real to us. Do you remember how it 
was said of a good woman by a chivalrous 
man, " that it was a liberal education to have 
known her." Why? Had she written books? 
No. Had she led some great movement and 
been a brilliant figure in society? No. Had 
she wit and genius, a mind of unusual power 



OUR TASK AS CHRIS TIA NS> 8 1 

and penetration? No. What did she have? 
She had the grace of sweet purity and good- 
ness. She had complete sympathy with Jesus 
Christ. Christ lived in and through her. She 
was in the grandest and broadest sense a Chris- 
tian woman. There are such people in the 
world — people of such a noble order that when 
we meet them we instinctively recognize that 
they are the finest products of human life. We 
come out of their presence invigorated and 
strengthened and refreshed. We love good- 
ness better for having seen them, and feel a 
new loyalty to the truth for having talked with 
them. We know them by the brightness of 
their eye, and the purity of their face, and the 
calmness of their brow. The gentle dignity of 
their manner and the influence of their holy 
lives make us feel and know that they breathe 
the air, and wear the dress, and speak the lan- 
guage, and frequent the court of the King of 
kings. By their motives and words and deeds 
and principles and sacrifices and devotion they 
make the discipleship of Jesus a real and beau- 
tiful confession, and the personality of Christ 
one of the vital forces of the world. They 
" compel us to come in. " 

If what I have said be true, the practical 
question with you and me is, What kind of a 



82 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

personality are we offering Jesns Christ to be 
used in His service? How much of Christ can 
those whom we beseech to become reconciled 
to Christ see in us? Are we by our personali- 
ties spoiling the texts of Scripture which we 
quote, or are we adding power to them? What 
are we for personal sanctity? Is sin in our souls 
as an admiration, or as an approval, or as a 
toleration? If so, it will hinder our effective- 
ness as Christians. We should keep our souls 
as the Holy of Holies. Be assured a concep- 
tion within will some day become a transcep- 
tion without. We should give no tolerance to 
sin or to the low or to the second class. We 
should be pure-souled and pure -handed. We 
should be men and women of pure eyes. Pure 
eyes carry in them the flame of fire and the 
light by which they are able to see the things 
of God ; now only those who see the things of 
God can tell them to others. 

But let no one be discouraged at these high 
things which I now present as needs for effec- 
tive Christian service. They are possible to 
all under the indwelling and operation of God's 
Holy Spirit. Even the humblest saint can be 
a correct representative of Jesus Christ. The 
Christ in his soul may be just as true as the 
Christ in the soul of the greatest saint in the 



OUR TASK AS CHRISTIANS. 83 

Christian fellowship. The smallest rainbow in 
the tinest drop of water, which hangs on the 
sooty eave of your house, and which catches 
the sunlight — the smallest rainbow in that tiny 
water-drop has precisely the same lines and 
the same colors and the same order of beauty 
as the great arch that strides in grandeur across 
half the sky. My fellow-men, having the right 
personality for effective Christian work is nar- 
rowed down to just this with us : It is a simple 
question of complete surrender of self to God, 
to be moulded and purified and developed and 
filled with his divine indwelling. It is a 
question altogether of the human will. Do 
you will to have that personality? You can 
have it. 

When we reach these requisites of which I 
have spoken to-day — what a grand church we 
shall have! what a power we shall exert in 
this community! what soul-saving shall be 
witnessed in our midst — each unit will be a 
host in himself and in herself, and the united 
power of all for God will be irresistible. We 
shall have a full church, a praying church, an 
indoctrinated church, a united church, a church 
whose members weep with those who weep as 
well as rejoice with those who rejoice ; a sym- 
pathetic church, a worshipful church, a church 



84 THINGS OF N0RTHF1ELD. 

of saved families — families unbroken in the 
faith and service of Christ ; a church equipped 
with power from on high, full of the Holy 
Ghost and of fire ; a spiritually-minded church, 
a testimony-bearing church, and, finally, a 
working church. 



AM I WORLDLY? 



* Ye are not [of the world : . . . I have chosen you out of the 
world." John xv. 19. 



IV. 

AM I WORLDLY? 

" Am I worldly? This question has been 
pushing itself upon me for months. It has 
been uttering itself over and over again. I 
am literally compelled to meet it. It has for- 
mulated itself, and has urgently asked itself, 
because, in my late reading of the Bible, my 
mind has been arrested and overwhelmed by 
the great number of scriptures which refer to 
God's people and their relations to the world. 
In these scriptures the world is defined, and 
the man of God is defined, and the antagonism 
which exists between the world and the man of 
God is defined. These scriptures are plain- 
spoken and are their own interpreters. These 
scriptures run through both testaments of the 
Book. You find them in the Old Testament 
and in the New Testament. 

In the Old Testament they are such as 
these : 

87 



88 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

"Deliver my soul . . . from men of the world, who 
have their portion in this life." 

"Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God : the 
Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people 
unto himself, above all the people that are on the face 
of the earth." 

"And ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am 
holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye 
should be mine." 

"In that day there shall be upon the bells of the 
horses, holiness unto the Lord. " 

In the Old Testament the very names of 
God's people distinguish them and separate 
them from the world, and so does their con- 
stant association with God. When they are 
worldly, they are failures in life; when they 
are unworldly, they are a success. Lot was 
worldly : Abraham was unworldly. You know 
which of the two men was the great God-power 
in history and the source of blessing to man- 
kind. The stories of these two men search 
us; and we instinctively ask ourselves as we 
read them: "Am I Lot? or, Am I Abraham?" 
The great souls of the Old Testament were all 
separated unto God. 

This was the case with Moses. 

"By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused 
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; choosing 
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to 



AM I WORLDLY? 89 

enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season : Esteeming the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of 
Egypt." 

This was so in the case of Isaiah : separating 
himself unto God, he said : 

"Here am I, send me." 

This was so with Daniel ; he was in Babylon, 
but he was not of Babylon ; and everybody in 
the kingdom knew it. Everybody knew that 
he was the prophet of God, and that he be- 
longed to Israel. This is the sum and sub- 
stance of the teaching of the Old Testament, 
viz. : The Covenant-people of God should live per- 
petually toward the holy place. 

Explicit as are these Scriptures of the Old 
Testament, and clear as their teachings are in 
declaring God's people to be a separated peo- 
ple, the Scriptures of the New Testament are 
still more explicit and outspoken and mani- 
fold. In turning the pages of the New Testa- 
ment, we find that Jesus and all his apostles 
are one in emphasizing the unworldliness which 
should characterize the people of God. To 
begin with, there is nothing that Jesus teaches 
with greater frequency or with greater posi- 
tiveness than this fact, that we are to be un- 
worldly in our Christian life. Our text is in 
evidence here : " Ye are not of the world . . . 



90 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

I have chosen you out of the world. " In an- 
other place the Master warns us against the 
Mammon-spirit, and tells us plainly that we 
cannot live a double life; neither can we re- 
cruit the devil into the Lord's ranks: 

"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon: no man can 
serve two masters. " 

There is not room for two master-passions 
in one heart. It is Jesus who sets forth the 
profitlessness of the world's service, even when 
a man is successful in that service : 

"What will it profit a man even though he should 
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ; or what 
will a man give in exchange for his soul ? " 

This must be an important matter — viz., 
our unworldliness — for Jesus makes it a sub- 
ject of his prayers. His prayers give us an 
insight into things. For all Christians Jesus 
prays : 

" Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those 
whom thou hast given me : While I was in the world I 
kept them in thy name. I pray not, that thou shouldst 
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst 
keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, 
even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through 
thy truth ; thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me 
into the world, even so send I them into the world." 

Would Jesus Christ have prayed thus for us 



AM I WORLDLY? 9 1 

if our unworldliness were not a matter of su- 
preme importance? 

Passing from the Master, listen to his apos- 
tles. Paul, the chief of the apostles, is just 
as definite as Jesus himself in setting forth the 
duty of unworldliness. These are some of his 
words : 

"Be not conformed to this world ; but be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove 
what is that good and acceptable will of God." 

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbe- 
lievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with 
unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with 
darkness ? And what agreement hath the temple of God 
with idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God ; as 
God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them ; 
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye sepa- 
rate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; 
and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, 
and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
Almighty." 

There is nothing uncertain about that mes- 
sage. Its teaching is clear. It declares that 
God and Belial cannot be reconciled in one 
brotherhood. They cannot exist together. 
There is a broad and ineffaceable line of de- 
marcation between the church of God and the 
world. They are so far apart that no man can 
live in both at the same time. To try to do so 



92 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

produces an absurd piety and a sham. You 
might as well try to mix light and darkness. 
They refuse to mix. Give Christianity the 
sway, and it will conquer the world and eradi- 
cate it; give the world the sway, admit it 
into the church, and it will efface the church. 
The world once crucified Christ, and if ever it 
gets the opportunity it will crucify the church 
of Christ. It proposes a compromise to the 
church, true ; but its compromise always means 
death. That is why it proposes it. Men who 
live in the church of Jesus Christ and men 
who live in the world live in different spiritual 
universes, and the difference between the two 
universes is so great and so radical and so es- 
sential that no friendship between them is pos- 
sible. "What fellowship hath righteousness 
with unrighteousness? " 

Add to the words of Paul the words of 
James : 

" The friendship of the world is enmity with God ; 
whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the 
enemy of God." 

" True religion before God is to keep oneself unspotted 
from the world." 

Add to the words of James the words of 
Peter : 
" For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the 



AM I WORLDLY? 93 

world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
they are again entangled therein, and be overcome, the 
latter end is worse with them than the beginning. " 

"Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pil- 
grims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the 
soul. " 

But I wish you especially to add to the words 
of Paul and James and Peter the words of John 
the Apostle of love. He talks upon this sub- 
ject just like Jesus : 

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in 
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
Father is not in him. The world passeth away and the 
lust thereof : but he that doeth the will of God abideth 
forever." 

"Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world. " 

"Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We 
know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in 
wickedness." 

"As he is, so are we in this world." 

This is Christ's teaching over again. It is a 
declaration, by the last writer of the New Tes- 
tament, that the type of the Christian has been 
permanently fixed. Christ himself is the type. 
Our relation to the world is his. " As he is, so 
are we in this world." Our mission here as the 
people of God is to repeat the life of Jesus 
Christ. John says: " Study Jesus Christ if 
you would know the character you should wear 
and the life you should live in this world. You 



94 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

are one with him. " " As he ts y even so are we in 
this world" We are called by his name; and 
we are one with him We are here with a 
message; we are here with a mission. Like 
his, ours is a mediatorial position in the world ; 
and this determines our mode of activity as 
Christians. It is ours to be in the world, yet 
not of the world. What did Jesus do when he 
was in the world? " He kept in unimpeded 
contact with God, and he kept in unimpeded 
contact with men. " This is what we are to do. 
We are here to practise the presence of God 
among men. To represent God. To move 
among men? Yes; but at the same time to 
dwell in the secret place of the Most High 
To converse with men? Yes; but at the same 
time to keep up a sustained converse with God. 
In vital touch with God and in vital touch with 
man — that is the Christian life. But mark you, 
what this makes out of our companionship with 
the men of the world ! With the men of the 
world, whose portion is in this life, and in this 
life only, we have nothing to do but to save 
them. We are to be as Christ unto them. For, 
"as he is, so are zve in this world." When you 
learn the purpose for which Jesus Christ was 
in the world, you learn the purpose for which 
we are in the world. 



AM I WORLDLY? 95 

These are some of the Scriptures to which I 
referred in the beginning of my sermon and 
which I said started this question in my soul : 
" Am I worldly ? " They are radical ; they are 
searching. They measure me ; they weigh me ; 
they analyze me; they summon me to God's 
judgment-bar. They tell me what I ought to 
be ; and reveal the spirit which should animate 
me. They give me the life of Jesus Christ by 
which to square my life, and then they push 
home this question, " Does your life square with 
his life?" 

My fellow-men, is it right for me to allow 
myself to be arrested and swayed in my think- 
ing by these Scriptures? Do they impress you 
as they impress me? Have you noticed, as I 
have, the tone of severity with which the Bible 
names and deals with worldliness? When I 
am at my best, I do not like the world nor 
worldlings. Do you? When I look at the 
world from a high spiritual standpoint, there 
is nothing in its character or destiny to attract 
me ; there is everything to repel me. I do not 
admire its devotees either in their principles 
or in their aims. Worldlings are the exponents 
of the world ; but there is not a decent world- 
ling in the Book. Not that the worldlings who 
walk the Book are few — they are many. In the 



96 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

Old Testament you have Lot and Achan and 
Balaam ; in the New Testament yon have Dives 
and Judas and Demas and Diotrephos. But 
they are a bad coterie. What lives they lived ! 
What characters they built up! What influ- 
ences they exerted! What destinies they 
reached! Do you wish to duplicate them in 
your experience? Would you be proud to bear 
their names? Yet in them we see the very 
best the world can do for man. All who live 
worldly will certainly be their duplicates. 
Think of it — all these men held known and 
nominal relations to God and to God's Cove- 
nant-people. They were all religious world- 
lings. That only makes it more imperative 
for us, who are in the church of God, to ask 
the question : " Ami worldly ? " The presence 
of so many worldlings in the Book is indicative 
of the existence and prevalence of worldliness 
and is proof of our need of watchfulness on 
this line of danger. 

I think Bunyan, with his insight relative to 
human nature and relative also to the religious 
life, discerned this ; hence in writing his match- 
less allegory he strikes at the sin of worldliness 
as at no other sin, and exposes its prevalence 
by multiplying in his writings the characters 
who are swayed by it. He reproduces all the 



AM I WORLDLY? 97 

worldlings of the Bible, in some form or other, 
and in fresh lights. They are all in his graphic 
pages. There is Mr. Worldly-wise-man, who 
lives in the town of Carnal Policy, and Mr. 
Talkative and Mr. Formalist and Mr. Hypoc- 
risy, and Madame Bubble and By- Ends and 
Hold-the-world, and Demas, the proprietor of 
Hill Lucre. 

In painting Madam Bubble, Bunyan shows 
his full skill and his astonishing genius. She 
is one of his masterpieces. Madam Bubble is 
simply the vain world personified. She is set 
forth by mean of a dialogue in which Stand- 
Fast, Honest, and Great- Heart take part. 

Stand-Fast begins by relating a temptation 
to which he had been subjected. " One in very 
pleasant attire presented herself unto me and 
offered me three things. I repulsed her once 
and twice, but she put by my repulses and 
smiled. Then I became angry ; but she mat- 
tered that nothing at all. She made her offers 
again and said, ' If I would be ruled by her she 
would make me great and happy ' ; for said 
she, 'I am mistress of the world, and men are 
made happy by me. ' Then I asked her name, 
and she told me it was Madam Bubble. This 
set me further from her ; but she still followed 
me with her enticements. Then I betook m@ 
7 



98 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

to my knees, and cried for help to Him who has 
said he will always help. This is why you 
found me praying, gentlemen." 

Honest broke in : " Madam Bubble ! Is she a 
tall and comely dame? Doth she not speak 
smoothly, and give you a smile at the end of 
each sentence? Doth she not wear a great 
purse by her side ; and is not her hand often 
in it fingering her money, as if that were her 
heart's delight?" Stand-Fast replied: "Just 
so ; had she been before you all this while, you 
could not more amply have set her forth nor 
have better described her. " Then Great- Heart 
said: "The woman is a witch. Whoever lay 
their eyes upon her beauty are counted the 
enemies of God. If one be cunning to get 
money, she will speak well of him from house 
to house — she is always at one full table or an- 
other. She promises well. She promises ev- 
erything. She will cast out of her purse gold 
like dust in some places and to some persons. 
This is to give her a cheap reputation. She 
loves to be sought after. It was she that set 
Absalom against his father and Jeroboam 
against his master. It was she that persuaded 
Judas to sell his Lord and that prevailed upon 
Demas to forsake the godly pilgrim's life. 
None can tell the mischief that she doth. She 



AM I WORLDLY? 99 

maketh variance betwixt rulers and subjects, 
betwixt parents and children, betwixt neigh- 
bor and neighbor, betwixt a man and him- 
self, betwixt the flesh and the heart." My fel- 
low-men, this woman who stands forth as the 
personification of the world is a hollow sham. 
She blows only bubbles of empty hope in the 
brains of men. She has only the transitory 
things of the world to offer ; and the life which 
she constructs is nothing more than a far-shin- 
ing, high-soaring bubble, which breaks and 
disappoints. Was not Lot's life only a bril- 
liant shining bubble? Did it not break and 
amount to nothing? Did it not go out of sight 
in a collapse? Ye who are living for the world 
and finding your pleasures in it are playing 
with a bubble. 

One of the richest chapters which Bunyan 
ever wrote, according to my mind, is that chap- 
ter in which Christian and Hopeful fell in with 
a whole bevy of worldlings — all of whom were 
pilgrims professedly traveling to the Celestial 
City. First, they overtook a man whose name 
was By- Ends, who came from the town of Fair- 
Speech. In the town of Fair-Speech By- Ends 
said he had many relatives. " Pray, who are 
your relatives there, if I may make so bold as 
to question you?" asked Christian. "Almost 



IOO THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

the whole town," replied By-Ends; "and in 
particular my Lord Time-Server and my Lord 
Fair-Speech; also Mr. Smooth-Man, and Mr. 
Facing-Both-Ways, and Mr. Anything. The 
parson of our parish church, Mr. Two-Tongues, 
is my mother's own brother. . . . The worst 
that I ever did to give an occasion of offence 
to any, and for which they gave me the nick- 
name 'By-Ends,' was that I had always the 
luck to jump in my judgment with the present 
way of the times, whatever it was." Continu- 
ing, he informed Christian that there were two 
small points in which he differed from the 
strict sort of religious people: first, he never 
did strive against wind and tide ; secondly, he 
was always most zealous when religion went 
in silver slippers ; he loved to walk with relig- 
ion on the sunny side of the street and when 
people applauded." But By-Ends soon tired 
of the company of Christian and Hopeful and 
fell behind them in the way. He did not, how- 
ever have to travel alone, for soon there over- 
took him three other fellow-travelers of a kin- 
dred mind, viz. : Mr. Hold-the-World, Mr. 
Money-Love, and Mr. Save-All. Each of these 
gentlemen had formerly been school-fellows 
under Mr. Grip-Man in Love-Gain, a market- 
town in the county of Coveting. These pil- 



AM I WORLDLY? 101 

grims, spying Christian and Hopeful ahead of 
them in the road before them, began to talk 
about them. "They are a couple of far- 
country-men that after their mode are going 
on a pilgrimage," said By-Ends. "Alas! why 
did they not stay that we might have their 
good company? for they and we and you, sir, 
I hope, are all going on a pilgrimage," said Mr. 
Money-Love. " We are indeed," answered By- 
Ends, "but the men before us are rigid, and 
love so much their own notions, and do so 
lightly esteem the opinions of others, that let a 
man be ever so godly, yet if he jumps not with 
them in all things, they thrust him quite out of 
their company." "That is bad," said Save- 
All, " but we read in the good Book of some 
that are righteous overmuch." "Why," said 
By-Ends, "they, after their headstrong fash- 
ion, conclude that it is duty to rush on their 
journey in all weatheis; I am for waiting for 
wind and tide. They are for hazarding all for 
God at a clap ; I am for taking all advantage to 
secure my life and estate. They are for hold- 
ing their notions, though all other men be 
against them ; I am for religion in so far as the 
times and my safety will bear. They are for 
religion in rags and contempt ; but I am for him 
when he walks in silver slippers, in the sun- 



102 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

shine, and with applause." To all this Mr. 
Money-Love and Mr. Save-All and Mr. Hold- 
the-World most heartily assented, and that for 
two reasons, i. e. , they had both Scripture and 
reason on their side. As Mr. Hold-the-World 
remarked, " Abraham and Job were both rich, 
and had much of this world." All these men 
traveled along- until they came to the Hill 
Lucre with its gold-mine, where they were en- 
ticed from the pilgrim-way by Mr. Demas, the 
owner of the mine. But after that Bunyan 
says, " They were never seen in the way again. " 
The deceitfulness of riches and the power of 
the world wholly destroyed them. They sold 
themselves, their time, their health, their souls, 
for wealth. " How hardly shall they that have 
riches enter into the kingdom of God; it is 
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle than for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of God." 

An old English poem sets into the light the 
destructive power of the world in the lives of 
men; I can do no better than give it just 
here: 

" Three hungry travelers found a bag of gold ; 
One ran into the town where bread was sold. 

He thought , ' I will poison the bread I buy, 
And seize the treasure when my comrades die. ' 



AM I WORLDLY? 103 

But they, too, thought, when back his feet have hied, 
'We will destroy him, and the gold divide.' 
They killed him, and, partaking of the bread, 
In a few moments all were dead. 

O World ! behold what ills thy goods have done ; 
Thy gold thus poisoned two, and murder'd one." 

But we have dwelt long enough with these 
Scriptures and with their solemn warnings. 
We have dwelt long enough with these charac- 
ters of John Bunyan and with their ghastly end : 
Lot stripped of his all; Achan stoned; Balaam 
slain ; Dives in hell j Judas a suicide ; Demas a 
traitor meeting a traitor's doom; Mme. Bubble 
collapsed ; By-Ends and Money-Love and Save- 
All and Hold-the-World forever lost and seen 
no more in the pilgrim-path which leads to the 
Celestial City. We have dwelt long enough 
with these ; all these have their individual in- 
fluence with us ; they talk to us ; they search 
us ; they reveal to us our human nature ; they 
teach us the great prevalence of worldliness 
even in professed Christians ; they plant inter- 
rogation points in our hearts and lead us to 
ask the question, " A m I worldly ? " They also 
show how opportune the discussion of worldli- 
ness is in the Christian pulpit. It is opportune, 
for the spirit of the world is even in the church 
of God itself. 



1 04 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 

It is in our day as it was in Charles Finney's 
day. Toward the end of his great career that 
man of God, Charles Finney, writes : " Oh, if I 
had strength of body to go through the churches 
again, instead of preaching to convert sinners, 
I would preach to bring up the churches to the 
Gospel-standard of holy living ; for the world- 
liness of the churches and of the professed peo- 
ple of God is the great barrier to the progress 
of the cross with its salvation. It is a disgrace 
to religion that it is so. " 

At first thought one would think that the 
world would let the church of God alone ; it is 
professedly so different from the world ; it is 
the avowed enemy of the world ; but on second 
thought it appears that the world's best policy 
is to capture the church and fill it with worldly 
Christians. Entrenched in the church, the 
world is in possession of its mightiest power. 
There is a policy which is far better than blow- 
ing up the Maine, and that is, capture the 
Maine, and turn its guns on America. That 
is the policy which the world follows when it 
captures the church and fills it with nominal 
Christians who are ruled by fashion and pride 
and carnal ambition, and who live more for 
themselves than for God ; who make the church 
a stepping-stone and a gateway into society, a 



AM I WORLDLY? 105 

help in their profession and business, a means 
of getting on and up in the world, who use the 
church instead of allowing the church to use 
them. 

But I hear you ask : " How can I tell whether 
I am worldly or not? " That is the practical 
question before us, and I am glad you ask it. 

I answer, worldliness is a condition of the 
heart. It is the inner spirit of the man or the 
woman. First of all, it has to do with your 
sympathies, your desires, your loves, your state 
of heart, your mental and moral and spiritual 
attitude toward the maxims, the aims, the pol- 
icy, the disposition, the conduct, and the animus 
of the world. How do you regard the world 
in your heart? And how do you regard the 
people of the world? 

If in your heart you covet the things of this 
world, you are worldly. If you are identified 
with the world more than you are with the 
church, you are worldly. If you have no time 
for a prayer each day, no time for a chapter of 
God's Book, no time for a glimpse of God, not 
one hour in the week for the prayer-meeting, 
only an hour and a half for one Sabbath service 
each week, you are worldly. Some of you have 
on your visiting-cards : " At home on Monday," 
or, " At home on Tuesday" ; you need another 



106 THINGS OF NORTH FIELD. 

inscription on your visiting-cards : "At prayer- 
meeting on Friday, and at church morning and 
evening on Sabbath. " Why not? Are you too 
worldly to put that inscription on your visiting- 
cards? Oh, you are trying to be Christians 
without being odd! Well, you cannot suc- 
cessfully be Christians and not be odd. That 
inscription on your visiting-cards will be a 
recognition of the prayer-meeting which the 
prayer-meeting well merits; and it will be a 
timely protest against social entertainments 
and receptions on the Lord's Day which in our 
time are obtaining even among professed 
church people. 

If your associations in life are worldly, you 
are worldly. You are surrounded by people 
who do not fear God, who do not keep his 
Commandments, who are not living as seeing 
him who is invisible, who have no treasure in 
heaven, who have no plans or purposes which 
extend into an existence beyond the grave; 
they are vain, they are empty of God, they are 
minus faith, minus hope, minus all spiritual 
life. What is your attitude toward such? Do 
you make your choice of friends, in this life, 
from these professedly worldly men and 
women? If so, you are worldly. The child of 
God says, " I am companion of all those who 



AM I WORLDLY 7 t°7 

fear and obey thee." I tell you, brethren, our 
worst foes are our ungodly friends. Those 
who are false to God are not likely to be true 
to God's people. The smiling daughters of 
Moab did more to hurt Israel than all the 
frowning warriors of Balak. All Philistia 
could not have bound and blinded Samson, if 
Delilah's charms had not deluded him. 

"Then we cannot go into society at all; we 
must live excluded lives!" I have not said 
that. No; you can go into society, if you 
wish ; but you must take Christ with you. Do 
you want to go into society without Christ? 
If so, what kind of a Christian are you? " Ye 
are not of the world. . . . I have chosen yon out 
of the world." You can go into society just 
as Jesus Christ did. Jesus never struck his 
colors. Neither should you strike yours. So 
completely was his religious character the whole 
of him, and so powerful and victorious were 
his principles, that there was no fear of any 
company obscuring his testimony for God. 

While he mingled with men, they all felt the 
sacredness which was about him. In his pres- 
ence they felt the shallowness of the world. 
You go into society. What is the result? Is 
society influenced by you, or are you influenced 
by society? What effect has its enjoyments 



1,08 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

upon your religious life and your profession? 
Does it silence your testimony and cool down 
your enthusiasm? Does it secularize you and 
unfit you for prayer? In it are you true to 
your Saviour? Are you known as a Christian 
and do people respect your position? Can you 
speak of the subjects which are nearest your 
heart? Do you mould society, or does society 
mould you? By mingling with society are you 
making others Christian? If yours is a fruitless 
profession, you are a] world. If the worldling 
can truthfully say of you, " He is no better than 
I am," you are a worldling. The man who can 
do business, and not be known as a Christian 
by his business scruples and method and spirit, 
is a worldling. A woman who can mingle in 
society, and not be recognized as a Christian by 
her modest dress and pure ways and her holy 
talk, is a worldling. 

If you live as a worldling, you are a world- 
ling. That needs no argument; that is axio- 
matic. That is the whole truth in a nutshell. 
Christian people, if they are to represent Christ 
and his church aright in the world, must bring 
to the world lives that are suffused and all on 
fire with God's presence. They must be men 
and women characterized by righteousness and 
honesty ; they must be pure in tone, in speech, 



AM I WORLDLY? 109 

in thought ; open and transparent as the light 
in their ideals and ambitions. They must be 
men and women of large self-sacrifice. 

I have said that the question " Am I worldly?" 
is an exceedingly practical question ; and it is. 
I wish to say now that there is another ques- 
tion which is just as practical, and that ques- 
tion is this : 

What is the best way whereby I can overcome 
my worldliness ? 

This sermon would amount to nothing as a 
force in life, unless I answered this question. 
To know that I am worldly would only throw 
me into despair, if the way of escape from my 
worldliness were not clearly pointed out. I 
have three points to give you in this line : 

1. If you would overcome your worldliness ', live 
positively — i.e., take as your standard in life 
Christ and Christ's will, and your high calling in 
Christ. 

Your calling in Christ is separation from the 
world. " Ye are not of the world. ... I have 
chosen you out of the world. " " As he is, so 
are we in this world." That makes Christ and 
his life our standard. That makes our high 
calling in Christ our standard. That calls us 
to be positive. That leads us to live on the 
line which the Apostle Paul commands when 



1 1 o THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 

he says : " Be not conformed to this world, but 
be ye transformed by doing the will of God. " 
We are not to spend our whole time in avoid- 
ing this evil and that evil; in fighting down 
this and that public sentiment ; in opposing this 
and that majority — that is negative. We are 
to spend our time rather re-living the life of 
Christ ; doing the known and commanded will 
of God ; planting new principles in our souls, 
and living the new life — this is positive. If we 
keep our time filled with doing what we ought 
to do, there will be no place or time for doing 
the things we ought not to do. The word 
" transformed" translated into holy living, con- 
quers the word "conformed." Stand face to 
face with the shining splendors of the will of 
God, and become transformed into the incarna- 
tion of these, and you will not be conformed to 
the world. Be spiritual, and you will not be 
carnal. Be like Christ, and you will not bear 
in your personality a single feature of Belial. 
Be honest in business, and you will not be dis- 
honest. Be a Christian in society, and you will 
not be a heathen. Be a believer, and you will 
not be an unbeliever. That is, live your whole 
life on distinctively Christian lines, and your 
faith will win the victory over the world. The 
cure for worldliness is this : in all things and 



AM I WORLDLY? in 

in all places be out-and-out for Christ, and live 
as an unmistakable citizen of the kingdom of 
God. Try everything you do by Jesus Christ, 
and measure it by your high calling. In Christ 
Jesus you are a new creature ; live as a new 
creature. 

2. If you would overcome your worldliness } 
analyze narrowly the career of the worldling and 
make a careful note of his losses in life. 

Use the story of Lot. His is a striking case. 
He moved out of his simple patriarchal life into 
Sodom, the world-centre of his age; and you 
know the result. There was a deterioration of 
soul ; there was a vitiation of character ; there 
was the loss of power ; spirituality gave way to 
carnality. Then came all manner of compro- 
mises; then low views of high things, and 
proposals that no man of God should ever 
make. But leap over to the end and see what 
is there. Retribution fell on Lot. And it was 
swift and terrible and tragic. In no drama 
ever written by the genius of man is there so 
overwhelming a climax as the last chapter in 
Lot's history. His family hopelessly worldly. 
He himself a jest, mocked by his children; the 
complete loss of all influence and power among 
men ; his wife overwhelmed with judgment — a 
poor, broken-down, pitiable old man, without 



1 1 2 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 

a single consolation of conscience or a single 
atom of affection, empty-handed he is compelled 
to flee for his life. It is true that he was ac- 
companied by his two unmarried daughters; 
but they carried in them all the carnality of 
Sodom and became the mothers of children 
who were the avowed enemies of God and of 
God's people. Contrast Lot, whose only abid- 
ing gift to the world consists in the Ammorites 
and the Moabites — contrast Lot with Abraham, 
the friend of God, from whom he parted, who 
gave mankind Israel with their covenants and 
oracles and promises and prophets and the 
great Christ. Lot stands for worldliness; 
Abraham for un worldliness. Give me un world- 
liness. Was not Lot saved? Yes; but his life 
was lost. He went empty-handed into heaven. 
That is the way it is with worldlings the world 
over ; they may themselves be saved, but their 
life of fifty and sixty and seventy precious 
years — this is lost. Can any Christian afford 
to lose his life? If not, then no Christian can 
afford to be worldly. 

3. If you would overcome your worldliness look 
after your environment, and live in spiritual 
associations. 

The unworldly company of the Book is a 
glorious company. Live in that. It is hard to 



AM I WORLDLY? 113 

surpass the personalities who live in the elev- 
enth chapter of Hebrews. The goodly fel- 
lowship of the Apostles and Prophets, this has 
no superior. Protect God's Sabbath with its up- 
lifting fellowships. You need its communion 
to re-spiritualize and re-charge your depressed 
Christian life. It should be a day of strength- 
ening insight and vision and communion. 
Make some man of God your special comrade 
and confidant in holy things. Lot failed just 
here. He left Abraham the friend of God, 
and when he lost his fellowship he lost his re- 
ligion. Do not attempt to live without your 
Abraham, your trusted friend, who is also 
God's trusted friend, and who has power with 
God, and to whom God is continually commit- 
ting his great and wondrous secrets ; who can 
instruct you and comfort you and pray for you. 
For the purpose of real, intimate, spiritual 
companionship, the having such a friend with 
whom you can freely and unreservedly talk is 
the very next thing to having God with whom 
you can talk, and in whom you can confide, 
and with whom you can consult. It is a great 
thing to know a man of God ; to get into the 
secrets of his heart ; to enjoy the benediction 
of his presence. God is in that man, and 
through that man is protecting us, and is in- 



1 1 4 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 

structing us, and is enfolding us with a divine 
and life-giving atmosphere. " He that walk- 
eth with the wise shall be wise" ; even so he 
that walketh with the unworldly shall be un- 
worldly. 



"Run, speak to this young man." — Zechariah ii. 4. 

OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG 
MEN. 



V. 

OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 

Let us get the Scripture location of this 
text. Let us reach its first meaning. By do- 
ing this we shall be able to find our way to the 
proper use of it in the times in which we now 
live. It carries in it an inner principle; by 
locating it we shall be able to reach that inner 
principle and make it a practical force. Its 
inner principle is this : " The young man car- 
ries in him the future ; if we are to take care of 
the future we must take care of the young 
man." 

The text is part of the book of Zechariah. 
Zechariah, the writer of the book, was a col- 
league of Haggai, and was contemporary with 
Zerubbabel the prince, and with Joshua the 
high priest, during the rebuilding of the 
Temple of Jerusalem. He and Haggai were 
prophets of God during the restoration of Israel 
from the Babylonian captivity to the Holy 

Land, the old home of the fathers. Israel had 
117 



II 8 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

a great work to do in reclaiming Palestine, and 
Zechariah was their God-sent inspiration in 
pushing that work to a successful and glorious 
issue. He saw a grand future for Israel, and 
this he lifted up before the people as a cheer 
and a stimulus and a source of strength. A 
shining future, beckoning one on, always puts 
nerve and power into a workman. 

God gave his prophet a revelation of the 
grandeur of the future in the form of striking 
visions, and his book consists of these visions 
put into type. These visions were a series of 
pictures proclaiming the advent of one glory 
after another. When God wants to think 
grandly he thinks in pictures. The text is part 
of a vision which sets before the mind a picture 
of the rebuilt Jerusalem, "The City of Peace." 
God meant the restored Jerusalem to be the 
joy of the whole earth. " Glorious things are 
spoken of thee, O city of God! " 

In the vision of Zechariah the prophet sees 
a young man all on fire with zeal for the future 
of Jerusalem going forth to the old site of the 
city, now in ruins; and, as he watches, the 
young man begins to take the measure of the 
foundations of the city as a preparation for 
rebuilding. The great mass of the returned 
exiles were young men, and this young man 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 119 

was one of their leaders. Two angels are in 
company with the prophet watching the young 
man, and as they watch him they discover that 
he is taking the old measurements and is plan- 
ning to build Jerusalem on the old model, and 
according to the old size. This was not ac- 
cording to God's mind. God had a new model 
for the coming Jerusalem; he had much larger 
plans. He meant the coming Jerusalem to be 
a much greater city than the old Jerusalem had 
been, and he meant that he himself should 
be its defence, " a wall of fire about it. " God 
had for Jerusalem grander things than the 
young man ever dreamed of. Seeing the young 
man's misconception and want of knowledge 
and low ideals and absentee hopes, the first and 
leading angel cries unto the second and sub- 
ordinate angel : 

" Run, speak to this young man ! Show him 
the boundaries of the new city of God, how far 
they are to exceed the old limits. Broaden the 
young man ; broaden his conceptions and his 
ideas. Put an excelsior into his heart. See 
that he does God's work in God's way and up 
to the measure of God's grand purpose. Cor- 
rect him; inspire him; strengthen him; pro- 
tect him; protect him against low and small 
and antiquated ideals. Make a noble workman 



1 2 o THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 

out of him. That young man carries the fu- 
ture in him ; run to him and enter into sym- 
pathy with him, and appreciate him and make 
him right, and take care of him ; by so doing 
you will make right and take care of the future. 
Do this, and do it at once. 'Run' ; make 
haste ; the interests of Jerusalem are at stake. 
''Run ' / make haste ; the interests of the nation 
are at stake. * Run. ' " 

My fellow-men, the text makes plain the fact 
that there is a duty which we owe our young 
men ; and it makes plain also what that duty 
is. It is our duty "to go for them." "Run, 
speak to this young man." 

In unfolding before us our duty to our young 
men our text makes our duty to consist in three 
things : 

i. It is our duty to appreciate our young 
men, and recognize what they carry in them. 

2. It is our duty to safeguard our young 
men and instruct them. 

3. It is our duty to welcome our young men 
as part of the great church of God, and com- 
mit the future to them. 

These three things the angel of God did in 
dealing with the young man of our text, and 
these three things we have learned by locating 
the text, and by getting at its inner principle. 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 121 

Our subject is now fairly before us, that we 
may search ourselves by means of it, and may 
seek stimulus, and may get into closer touch 
with our young* men, and may make holy reso- 
lutions in the line of our duty toward them. 
Brethren, there is no theme more important 
that this very theme. 

1. It is our duty to appreciate our young men 
and recognize what they carry in them. 

They carry the future in them. I hear you 
say : " That is a truism, everybody admits that. 
It is not worth while making a point out of it." 
Still I make a point out of it, and I dwell upon 
it. For, truism as it is, the majority of us do 
not realize it. If we realized it as we should, 
we wotild treat our young men differently. 
We would put the stress of our labor upon their 
interests. We accept this point in a general 
way: "Oh, yes, certainly; our youth carry the 
future in them." But we do not particularize 
this point; we do not individualize our boys, 
and see in this boy a future and a coming lead- 
ership on this line, and see in that boy an alto- 
gether different future and a leadership on an 
altogether different line. We do not treat each 
and every young man as important. Truism 
as our point is, we have not gotten a right hold 
of it yet. Our underestimation and our neg- 



1 2 2 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 

lect say that we do not rightly appreciate our 
young men. Let me illustrate. 

In Scotland they held a communion some 
years ago in one of their Highland churches. 
At this communion there was only one member 
received into the fellowship of the church. 
They held their communions in those days but 
once every six months. Six months, and only 
one convert! There was no thanksgiving to 
God for that increase. There was grumbling 
everywhere instead. The talk on every lip 
was: "At the last communion there were 
twenty received into the fellowship of the 
church; at this communion we have received 
only one, and he is nothing but a growing lad." 
If the people had foreseen the future of that 
lad, there would have been no complaint ; they 
would have sung one of their loudest songs of 
thanksgiving to God. That lad was the com- 
ing David Livingstone. He was worth that 
whole church lumped together; he was worth 
twenty such churches. That was the largest 
accession to its membership that church ever 
had. The future of the Kingdom of God in 
Africa was in that lad; but nobody saw it that 
day. David Livingstone was not appreciated 
on the day he made his public confession of 
Christ. We say that we believe that our 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 123 

young men carry in them the future, but our 
actions and our treatment and our underesti- 
mation of our young men say that we do not 
believe it. 

We see very little ways ahead in weighing 
and judging our young men. In judging and 
in weighing them we are partial. We give the 
preference to those born in the home of 
wealth, and slight the poor-born. We look at 
the face and form and not at the heart. Even 
the prophet Samuel did this, and, doing this, 
chose Eliab in preference to David. 

We are very slow in seeing a future for the 
hayseeds who come to our community; yet 
the hayseeds have made New York the great- 
est city in the United States. Most of the 
men in New York to-day who are prominent 
and successful in the various walks of life are 
not New York born, but are importations from 
the country. They were at one time hayseeds. 
When they started out in life, probably nobody 
believed in them, and nobody saw a future for 
them except their fond mothers and their own 
selves. 

A man, writing to his country home from 
the city of New York twelve years ago, wrote 
this paragraph for the encouragement of coun- 
try boys : 



1 24 THINGS OF NOR THF1ELD. 

"Every day in this city at one o'clock three hundred 
million dollars sit around a little mahogany table in an 
upper room in the Western Union building, and eat a 
plain but substantial lunch. The millions belong to 
Jay Gould, Sidney Dillon, Russell Sage, and ex-Gov. 
Alonzo B. Cornell. All were country boys, and wore 
shoes only on Sunday. Mr. Gould and Mr. Sage got 
their ideas of finances in village stores, and Mr. Dillon 
and Governor Cornell were day laborers, and were 
thankful when they trudged home Saturday night with 
six dollars in their pockets. " 

Three hundred million dollars! That was 
the future which these young men carried in 
them, yet nobody surmised it when they were 
young men. But the fact that nobody sur- 
mised it did not alter the case ; the future was 
there. 

Who, think ye, saw the Apocalyptist in the 
country lad of Judea, familiarly called John? 
Or who ever dreamed that he would write that 
wonderful roll of the Gospel, or those Epistles 
of love, or that marvellous Apocalypse? But 
these things were all there, awaiting only the 
coming of Jesus Christ into John's heart and 
life. 

Who, think ye, saw the great apostle of Je- 
sus Christ in the lad who played in the streets 
of Tarsus ; or the great man of the future who 
was to fill " The Book of the Acts," and who 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 125 

was to pen the ever-living Epistles? Yet that 
boy's hand was the hand destined by God to 
hold the inspired pen, and that boy's brain was 
the brain that was destined to think the grand 
thoughts that gave Christianity a second and 
larger life; and that boy's personality was the 
personality which was to contain the Son of 
God, and be his temple, and the medium 
through which Jesus Christ would live over 
again his holy life among men and give it a 
second incarnation. 

Illustrations on this line crowd the mind be- 
yond number — viz., illustrations of great fu- 
tures growing out of obscure boys. Christo- 
pher Columbus was the son of a weaver, and 
himself a weaver. Claude Lorraine was bred 
a pastry cook. Cervantes was a common sol- 
dier. Homer was the son of a farmer. De- 
mosthenes was the son of a cutler. Oliver 
Cromwell was the son of a brewer. Howard 
was apprenticed to a grocer. Franklin was a 
journeyman printer. Daniel Defoe was the 
son of a butcher. Virgil was the son of a por- 
ter. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper. 
Shakespeare was the son of a wool-stapler. 
Robert Burns was the son of a plowman of 
Ayrshire. 

In the young men about us, greatness is 



126 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

slumbering unrecognized; for history shows 
that young men in all the walks of life — even 
in the humblest walks — carry in them magnifi- 
cent futures. You cannot discriminate and 
pick out the geniuses, and care for them and 
train them; therefore you must care for all and 
train all and value all young men. 

There is a fact which I should like to bring 
forward and emphasize at this stage of our 
thought; it is intimately connected with the 
point before us, although it has an application 
to young men themselves and to their course 
and conduct. In this sermon, I am not so 
much speaking to young men as I am speaking 
for and on behalf of young men. The fact I 
wish to present now is for young men them- 
selves directly, and only indirectly for their 
friends and helpers. It is this : 

Young men, while you carry in you the fu- 
ture, and while you are getting ready for the 
future, you must not throw your lives so far 
forward as to forget the present. Your future 
is not so far away. Your future zvill soon be 
present. 

I am afraid that when we lay our stress upon 
the responsibility of young people for the fu- 
ture, there is a danger lest, in thinking too 
intensely about the future, they forget alto- 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 127 

gether about the present. I want to say to our 
young people : While you are getting ready for 
living, remember this — you are living now. 
You are living now as much as you will ever 
live. You are responsible now — as much re- 
sponsible now as you will ever be. I want to 
say also that probably the very best work 
which you will ever do in life will be done 
while you are young. So I advise you to get 
into your future at once. Goethe says: 

"We must be young to do great things." 
Schiller says : 

"Keep true to the dreams of thy youth." 

Both these poets teach that it is the thoughts, 
ambitions, darings, and enterprises of youth 
that stand for strength and achievement in the 
world. And this is true. As a rule, it is 
young men who achieve. It is young men who 
fight the battles of the nation. The average 
age of the men in the Union army during the 
Civil War was twenty-five. Gladstone, and 
Holmes, and Whittier, and Longfellow are ex- 
ceptions to the rule of achievements; they 
were great in old age and active in old age be- 
cause they retained in a large measure the 
spirit of their youth. Even in their case, com- 
paring them with themselves, their best work 



1 2 8 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 

was not their old-age work; their superior 
work was their more youthful work. 

Young men, do not let there be too much 
future in your life. Put plenty of the present 
into it. This story is told by the press : Some 
speculators sold lots to a Chinaman over in the 
New Jersey swamps. The Chinaman thought 
he had made a bargain; but when he went 
over to see his purchase and found that it was 
all covered with water, he was grievously dis- 
appointed and expressed himself quite strongly. 
The real-estate agent, trying to comfort and 
pacify him, said to him : " These lots, sir, have 
a great future ; and that is where the bargain 
comes in." The Chinaman shook his head and 
replied: "Too much future." Young men, 
see to it that there be not too much future in 
your lives. Carry in you the present as well as 
the future. You are living now ; you are re- 
sponsible now ; realize this, and, realizing this, 
live your very best now and meet your pres- 
ent responsibility up to its full measure. 

If you are to live well in this world and ac- 
complish anything great, you must live well 
while in youth. The men who have made their 
mark in the world have for the most part made 
it while young. Jesus Christ was a young 
man. He died at thirty- three. At thirty- 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 129 

three he had redeemed the world. At thirty 
Alexander had conquered the world. At thirty 
Napoleon was emperor of Italy. At twenty- 
nine Patrick Henry made his great patriotic 
speech, which inaugurated the American Revo- 
lution. At thirty-three Thomas Jefferson 
wrote the Declaration of Independence. At 
thirty-five Martin Luther had successfully in- 
augurated the Reformation. At twenty-six 
Whitefield filled both hemispheres with the 
fame of his sacred eloquence. 

The moral of all this is : There is no time to 
be lost, either upon the part of our young men 
— they must begin to live at once ; or upon the 
part of those who would help in preparing 
young men to get ready for life — they must 
give the help they intend to give at once. The 
word " run" in the text must be italicized and 
magnified: "run, speak to this young man." 

2. It is our duty to safeguard our young men 
and instruct them. 

To this duty the Christian community should 
at once awake. Our youth shovtld be safe- 
guarded by means of instruction. Methods 
should be adopted whereby the large and va- 
ried experiences of those who have succeeded 
in life may be placed at the disposal of those 
who are just starting in life. One large church 
9 



i$o THINGS OF NORTHFIELti. 

in New York seems to have awakened to a 
sense of its duty on this line. I use it as an il- 
lustration. Last season it arranged a course of 
Sabbath-evening lectures, in which prominent 
men in the different professions and trades of 
America gave their experience and their ma- 
tured counsel to young men. Physicians spoke 
there, and eminent lawyers and judges, and 
successful railroad men, and world-known liter- 
ary men, and millionaire financiers. Take, for 
example, Andrew Carnegie, the self-made capi- 
talist ; he spoke, and his millions back of him 
emphasized every word he uttered and carried 
his message home to thousands of young men 
through all the land, for his words were taken 
down and printed. What did he say? In brief, 
he gave these seven counsels, and I give them 
here as an object-lesson to chow how those of 
you who are older can safeguard those who are 
younger. 

"i. Never enter a barroom, nor let the contents of a 
barroom enter you. 

" 2. Do not use tobacco. 

"3. Concentrate. Having entered upon a certain line 
of work continue and combine on that line. 

"4. Do not shirk; rather go beyond your task. Do 
not let any young man think he has performed his full 
duty when he has performed the work assigned him. 
A man will never rise if he acts thus. Promotion comes 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 131 

from exceptional work. A man must discover where 
his employer's interests lie and push for these. The 
young man who does this is the young man whom Capi- 
tal wants for a partner and son-in-law. He is the young 
man who by and by reaches the head of the firm. 

"5. Save a little always. Whatever your wages lay 
by something from them. 

" 6. Never speculate. Never buy stocks or grain on 
margin. 

"7. Never indorse. When you enter on business for 
yourself never indorse for others. It is dishonest. All 
your resources, and all your credit, are the sacred prop- 
erty of the men who have trusted you. If you wish to 
help another, give him all the cash you can spare ; never 
indorse. It is dishonest. " 

It is a grand thing for our youth that our 
leading men are willing to step from behind 
their millions and look large audiences of 
young men in the face, and talk thus. This is 
throwing safeguards around our young men 
and instmcting them. 

The chief part of safeguarding and instruct- 
ing our young men, however, I believe is laid 
upon the home. And I wish to make this 
statement as prominent as possible. This is 
where I feel impelled by the Spirit to lay my 
stress. The family is the oldest institution 
pertaining to mankind. God gives the boys 
and girls first of all to the home to train them 



1 3 2 THINGS OF NOR TH FIELD. 

and place them in the state, to train them and 
place them in business, to train them and place 
them in the church. He puts them in the 
home to be guarded against temptation, to be 
counselled and instructed, and to have Jesus 
Christ built into them. Parents, yours is the 
first responsibility, and yours is the last re- 
sponsibility, and yours is the eternal responsi- 
bility; and of this perpetual responsibility 
there is not a solitary creature or agency on 
earth that can relieve you or answer to God for 
you. God held that good man Eli responsible 
for his two sons, Hophni and Phineas. Why? 
Because he was their father. And God visited 
the father with judgment on account of the 
sins of those two sons. God always does that. 
The boys are not found in the church : who 
is held responsible? The parents. The boys 
desecrate the Sabbath by spending God's day 
in riding the bicycle: who is held responsible? 
The parents. This is the rule, until the sons 
are in homes of their own; and even then a 
large degree of responsibility rests upon pa- 
rents for the conduct of their sons. What is 
the home good for if not to safeguard and pro- 
tect the children. Agonize until your chil- 
dren are brought into the church; agonize 
until your children are kept from Sabbath dese- 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 133 

cration. Let there be an uprising of the home 
against Sunday bicycling. When God gave 
you your children, you had wellnigh absolute 
omnipotence over them. You had the power 
to put into them just what you wished. If you 
have lost your influence over them for good, 
you have sinned it away ; and for that you are 
responsible. Your duty now is to agonize until 
you get that influence back. I stand here to 
assert and re-assert this solemn truth, that God 
holds the home responsible for its sons. And in 
God's name, I look the fathers and mothers of 
this church in the face, and ask, Where are your 
boys ? They should be with you here by your 
side, to be safeguarded and instructed. 

What is the first and chief duty which we 
owe our young men? The first and chief duty 
which we owe our young men is to get back a 
keen and burning sense of our parental respon- 
sibility for our sons. Parents, from this posi- 
tion which I solemnly take here this day, I re- 
fuse to budge a single inch. God holds you 
responsible for these boys of yours who have 
grown up into young manhood ; he holds you 
responsible for their absence from the church ; 
he holds you responsible for the characters 
which they ought to have; he holds you re- 
sponsible for the grand work which they ought 



134 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

to be doing for Jesus Christ and his kingdom. 
God is here to-day, in the midst of the holiness 
of his house, and he is pushing this question 
upon every parental heart: " Your boys : 
Where are they ?" " Your hoys : Where are 
they?" "Are they safeguarded and instruct- 
ed ? " " If not, why not ? " 

3. It is our duty to welcome our young men 
as part of the great church of God, and commit 
the future to them. 

I have spoken of the duty and responsibility 
of the family. I must now speak of the duty 
and responsibility of the church, for this pres- 
ent point which is before us treats of our duty 
individually as part of the church. The church 
has a great work to do here ; for the number of 
our young men is great. Statisticians tell us 
that there are in the American republic no 
less than fifteen million of men between the 
ages of eighteen and forty-four. If the Chris- 
tian churches were reaching these men with 
any degree of success, what mighty powers for 
God our churches would be ! What an attend- 
ance of men we would have at our services! 
Is it not worth while for the churches to put 
forth their full strength that they may reach 
these? If these men will not of their own ac- 
cord come to our churches, then it is the duty 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 135 

of our churches to go after them. Churches of 
God, reach these fifteen millions, and you will 
take this great republic for Jesus Christ and 
will make our civil future safe for centuries. 
It was between these ages, eighteen and forty- 
four, that Christ and the school of his apostles, 
a band of young men, established Christianity 
and gave Christendom to the world. We want 
these very men who are between these ages, 
eighteen and forty-four; we want them for 
work and for enterprise. They are men at 
their very best. 

The question suggests itself just here : How 
largely are the young men being reached by 
the churches and by the agencies of the 
churches? I answer: The results are equal to 
the efforts expended. No seed-sowing yields 
a grander harvest. Young men are reachable. 
They are largely susceptible to the influence 
of Jesus Christ. They respond as heartily as 
any other class of mankind. Take the statis- 
tics of the great religious movements of our 
day as the evidence — I mean the movements in 
which the church is seen at its best ! There, 
for example, is the Christian Endeavor move- 
ment, with its 40,000 societies and its 2,000,000 
members. A fair proportion of these 2, 000, 000 
are young men. Take the Young Men's 



136 THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

Christian Association, which celebrated its ju- 
bilee in London four years ago. It shows a 
brotherhood of 500 associations, with a total 
membership of over half a million young men. 
Take the Students' Volunteer Movement, 
working on missionary lines. It has a roll of 
4,000, three-fourths of them young men, and 
all offering themselves for mission work for all 
the fields of the world. There has been noth- 
ing like that since the day of Pentecost. 

Among the later movements of the day, we 
must not forget the Young Men's Christian 
Association work among the colleges and uni- 
versities. Work done here has been most 
fruitful. In less than twenty years, in the in- 
stitutions of North America, 500 associations 
have been established, with a membership of 
30,000 students. Over sixty thousand young 
men have been educated in methods of Chris- 
tian work by these associations, and these 
young men are our coming lawyers, physicians, 
teachers, and business men. This is the devel- 
opment of the laic element of the church. 
This is great. This is great, when we compare 
the present with the past. Go no farther back 
than the days of Dr. Dwight. When Dr. 
Dwight entered the presidency of Yale Univer- 
sity, he found a large number of young men 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 137 

there who were open and avowed atheists. 
They actually assumed the names of the noted 
atheists of the times. One called himself Vol- 
taire, another Paine, a third Hume, and a 
fourth Bolingbroke. To-day Yale is a distinc- 
tively Christian university, with the majority 
of the students fearless Christians. As it is in 
Yale, so it is in our other colleges. At Cor- 
nell, Princeton, and Colby universities, 50 per 
cent of the students are church-members; at 
Williams, 60 per cent; at Brown, 65 per cent; 
at Amherst, 75 per cent; at Boston University, 
85 per cent. 

Dr. Watson ("Ian Maclaren"), in his biog- 
raphy of Henry Drummond, who worked for 
Christ in colleges, says: "When Drummond 
began his work in Edinburgh University, there 
was no religion outside of a dozen men. Twenty 
years afterward six hundred young men met 
every Sunday evening for worship. There 
was a new breath in academic life ; men were 
now reverent, earnest, clean-living, and clean- 
thinking, and the reformer who wrought this 
change was Henry Drummond." 

The results of the work done for young men 
in our colleges affords the greatest satisfaction. 
It has brought into the church of Christ the 
brain-power of the future and the future lead- 



I3& THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

ers of thought. It has consecrated scholarship 
to the Kingdom of God. The net results here 
are great for one reason, and that is, the young 
men are here together and can be reached. It 
is easy to go to them. 

The question with us now is, Are the young 
men out of our colleges reached by the church 
as effectively as the young men in our colleges? 
That is the practical question. We must an- 
swer honestly: No, they are not. Here we 
are face to face with the individual church. 
The individual church is not reaching our 
young men. What young men? The young 
men who come among us from the country, 
and from rural villages, and from other cities. 
I am not now speaking of the young men born 
in our homes in the city. I have already put 
the responsibility for them where it rightly be- 
longs, and I am not going to change my ver- 
dict : the responsibility for them belongs with 
the parents. I am speaking now of the young 
men in our midst who are away from their 
home. There are probably fifty thousand such 
in the borough of Brooklyn alone. They are 
young men who are strangers. 

Of all young men, these are the young men 
who need our care. These are the young men 
whom the churches should seek out and be to 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 139 

them both father and mother. The more 
generous, and noble, and large-hearted they 
are, the severer their temptations and the more 
in number their tempters. The mean, miserly, 
small-souled, despicable young man is compar- 
atively safe. Tempters are choice in their 
tastes ; they pick the best as their victims. 

Now, I believe that God cannot and will not 
forgive the churches of our city if they are in- 
different and cold and neglectful in their duty 
just here — i. e. , if they let these young men go 
to destruction without doing all in their power 
for their rescue. Churches of God, if you can 
save these young men and refuse to do it, how 
can you look God in the face or how can you 
ask the blessing of God? What reason is there 
that God should bless you? God ought to blot 
you out of existence and plant other and faith- 
ful churches in your places; and he will. 

Brethren, have you considered your duty on 
this line? Do you think of these young men? 
Have you done anything yourself personally 
for them? You are part of the church. Think 
of it for a moment ! 

A young man leaves home for the first time ; 
he reaches our great city an absolute stranger. 
He was never so lonely. He is homesick. He 
goes to his work, glad that he has work to 



14© THINGS OF NORTHFIELD. 

make him forget himself and his loneliness. 
Oh, how long the nights are ! That little up- 
per hall-bedroom is not home. He is glad 
when Sabbath comes and he can go to church. 
There meet the friends of God; there is the 
household of faith; and he has been taught 
that he is a friend of God and a member of the 
household of faith. He will see whole families 
there, and they will remind him of his father's 
family. Perhaps some one will speak a kind 
word to him. He expects this. He expects a 
welcome. I think that it is often here at 
church that the young man, a stranger in the 
city, gets his first through and through chill, 
which freezes the love out of his heart, and 
puts even God at a great distance from him — 
puts God almost, if not altogether, out of his 
life— certainly puts the church of God out of 
his life. He comes into the great congrega- 
tion, and not a soul recognizes him, and not a 
hand is put into his in welcome. It is a queer 
family of God, such a church. It is a refriger- 
ator household of faith. 

But this does not occur often. // does occur 
often. I have been told of such young men, 
strangers in the city, who have come into this 
church one Sabbath, two Sabbaths, three Sab- 
baths, four Sabbaths, five Sabbaths, six Sab- 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 141 

baths, seven Sabbaths; and there was not a 
single hand-shake, not a single word of wel- 
come, and not a single invitation, " Come 
again." It is a shame. A queer family of 
God! Who is to blame? We are all of us to 
blame. Let us resolve that such a thing shall 
never again be possible in our household of 
faith. "Run, speak to this young man" Let 
the old acquaintances in the pews wait for their 
salutations until you, in God's name, have bade 
him welcome. As a church, are we doing any- 
thing for these young men who have come into 
our city? What are we doing? In the church 
to which I ministered in Boston, we had a bu- 
reau of information and reception to deal 
with just such. It was organized at my sug- 
gestion. We advertised our existence and 
purpose in The Congregationalist, and paid for 
the advertisement. That advertisement went 
into hundreds of New England homes, in coun- 
try and villages, and parents wrote us on behalf 
of their sons in the city and their sons about to 
come to the city, and felt glad that there were 
Christians to look after them. We helped 
these sons to get homes in Christian boarding- 
houses, and we located them in the church. It 
was a benediction to read the letters of thanks 
which we received from Christian homes and 



142 THINGS OF NOR THFIELD. 

hearts. As a church, are we doing anything 
like that? 

One man in that church, a rich man, who 
came when young as a stranger to Boston, 
made this rule: Every Sabbath he had three 
extra plates put upon his dinner-table. These 
three plates were for young men without 
homes, strangers in the city. He entertained 
one hundred and fifty strangers every year, 
and gave one hundred and fifty young men the 
privilege of seeing how a home looked from the 
inside. He was a busy man, but he taught a 
Bible-class which numbered from one hundred 
to one hundred and fifty young men. That 
man did more for that church than any minis- 
ter ever did. The young men loved him, and 
loved God through him, and loved the church 
of God through him. It was an impressive 
scene the day we laid that good man away in 
the churchyard at Andover. A trainload of 
young men attended his funeral, and young 
men carried his silent form upon their strong 
shoulders to its last resting-place. Have we 
anything like that in this church? Certainly 
we have men among us, in these pews, who 
could do this kind of work, and do it effectively 
if they but once whole-heartedly consecrated 
themselves to it. They could thus serve the 



OUR DUTY TO OUR YOUNG MEN. 143 

church, and the young men, and their own 
selves, and their God. A Sabbath-school class 
of one hundred or one hundred and fifty young 
men, strangers in the city ! God is calling for 
that this day. Who will hear the call of God? 
Who will inaugurate this class? Who will 
build it up? Who will pray for it? Who will 
teach it and lead it? Christian homes opened 
to Christian hospitality! That is what God 
wants for these strangers. Who will respond 
to that call? God forgive us that we have not 
done more of just such work for our young 
men! 

Brethren, as Christian parents, do for these 
young men, away from home, what you would 
that others should do for your sons, if they 
were compelled to leave you and go to a 
strange city to push their callings in life. As 
part of the church of God, I call upon you to 
welcome them and make them feel at home 
with us in this church which God has so hon- 
ored in the past. 



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